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August 19: Bobby Russ
I am not a huge fan of morning shifts... zzz... With that said, I got through it today with only minor tearing up and almost crying a couple times. I ran into one of the coupon ladies who comes in all the time. She started coming to our store back when Renee Row was a manager there. Anyway, she had heard about the tragic loss and told me she had been avoiding the store because she was too sad to interact for me for a while. I can appreciate that. There are times where waves of emotions threaten to break my great wall of Bobby's outward composure. There were many times that Renee and I would talk about the coupon ladies and she'd asked me to say Hi to them and vice versa. It's the social networking that existed.

Tonight, I was reading about how Paige had burnt her hamburger helper. When Renee first came down to me, she was no the best cook. She struggled with a number of recipes and generally had room to grow. With this said, she also loved making food and helping me to cook when I did as well. There were times we cooked together in our tiny kitchen in the trailer. Some very good memories.

As the years passed, she got better at cooking. She tried new things and her palate was expanded. I was pleasantly surprised when she experimented with things like Strawberry Bisque on the cruise. In addition, she tried several new recipes and experimented with my taste buds. Some were successes, but others failure. That was just part of the process.

There were some things I looked forward to her making. But we tried to find a balance between healthy foods and things that we really wanted that were not so much. I loved eating her dip that she made. I loved the sausage bread she made. It is something I will miss...

During her final year, we had talked about potentially ordering in something from a delivery service. It was better food for us and also similar cost to use going out to eat. Things were portioned and it offered some flexibility. Renee was a bit of a picky eater though so the challenge was finding meals that she wanted to eat.

She would eat veggies uncooked without issues, but once they were cooked she did not like the texture. There were some unique little quirks she had as well. For example, she only liked French Cut Green Beans. Honestly, I'm not sure the real difference between that and regular green beans, but I always made sure she had what she wanted. Now, I have 2 cases of them. That'll last me forever... For her, not so much as that tended to be the only veggie she would eat warm.

Towards the final month, we agreed to give HelloFresh a try. We got in one box of it a week before the accident. It came with 3 meals and she made up both of them. She was so very proud of the presentation and cook of the food that she did. The items looked very close to what the picture of them showed. I was proud of her hard work and the food was delicious. How proud of it was she? She took the two pictures below.

I remember her smiling brightly showing me the amazing job she did. Talking about how excited she was about the meals and how she was looking forward to the next set. Both of the meals below were enjoyed by both of us. She was so excited because she now had a recipe for tzatziki sauce (which was over the steak) that she loved. I remember her telling me now she could make her own for her gyros which she loved.

Sadly, she never did get to make it for them. After being told the bad news of her passing, I went home and the new Hello Fresh box was on the door. I couldn't help but feel a wave of sadness over it. She never got to enjoy the next set she had carefully selected for us.

However, my mom and Paige did work together to make those meals for me. We ate it in honor of Renee and I know she would have loved them. Renee and I shared a love of food and I am glad that I got to go on so many culinary journeys with her over the years. We'd watch Food Network shows and get ideas for meals. There are many memories of us sitting together plotting our meals. Forever in my mind is the one question that we had almost every night... "What are we going to do for dinner?" The answer may have varied based upon our work days, stress, and well being, but in the end, I looked forward to every meal I could share with her.