Savor to Clare

Remember one Sunday noon we sat on the screened-in porch, you, Dad, and I, passing the cheese board leisurely back and forth, eating a farmhouse Gouda, some crackers, plums, and grapes. Our hunger satisfied, we ate now just to savor, paring a sliver of cheese, plucking a single grape and rolling it on the tongue. Then you smiled and said, ''We lead a good life, don't we?'' and our simple meal was graced with mindfulness. As you leave us, daughter, take that blessing with you. It may be, in your life, that you never suffer hunger, but even so, you must fend off famine.