My father died on January 23, 2025.

Today marks 105 days.

As my father was dying, and ever since his passing, as I have howled at the moon (and sun and everything in between) a particular memory has been playing on repeat. It is the memory of my dad, how he once picked me up after a slumber party at a friend’s house. I was maybe around eight year old. It was winter, cold and grey in Buffalo, and when we got home he put me into my parents bed where I slept the entire rest of the day away.

Around five I woke, disoriented but feeling warm and safe and drowsy. The smell of cold cuts had invaded the house. I knew immediately that my dad had gone shopping. He loved to shop for food, especially at the Kosher deli, bringing his “kill” home like a caveman returning from a successful hunt.

There was always greasy salami, thick cuts of bologna and frayed slivers of corned beef.  To go with the meat, there was rye bread and mustard. Potato salad and coleslaw.

I crawled out of bed, in my pajamas and walked into our cramped kitchen. And there, in a plastic bag, swimming in a shallow inch of juice was my pickle.

Giant and dark green with flicks of bright green too.

Everything else was up for grabs, every crumb. Except my pickle. Not my dad, my mother nor any of my three brothers were allowed to touch it.

The pickle was mine—always mine—just for me—from my dad.

This memory, of my dad picking me up, of sleeping in my parents bed, of the cold and snow outside and being warm and safe inside, taken care of, fed, this makes me howl in the deepest way, down to the bottom of my soul, missing my dad.

This was a seed planted in me, that I was considered, known, seen. Loved and safe.

Life would happen. Something would happen between us, me and my dad. And my love for him, and his for me—and that pickle memory—would be lost until his death—unfelt until the day we said goodbye to one another.

Now, the pickle is a trigger for my grief. For my love. For my figuring out my own self, something I’ve previously been mostly unable to do.

A few months ago, without thought, I picked up a wad of clay and banged it on the table in my studio a few times. The shape eventually and not surprisingly turned into a pickle. I poked a cave all the way through the center to make it hollow, so I would not have a big hunk of solid clay that would eventually explode in the kiln. And then started experimenting.

Lo and behold, weeks later, after I’d gussied the still soft clay pickles up in green, let them dry and eventually final fired them with shiny glaze in a 2200 degree kiln, I fell somewhat madly in love with them.

With all their warts and wonky imperfection, pulling them out of the kiln with a kitchen mitt, still warm, I felt…this is home.

This is dad.

I want now, only to make more.

As I grieved and still grieve, as I howl frequently these days, as I sit outside in the mornings and write and cry, I think that I would like to make a pickle for every single person I have loved and do love. And that in that doing so makes me feel better. Better than selling them on Etsy or trying to. Better than having them in some show.

This idea cheers me up. One of the few things these days that do.

I love you dad.

You are my first pickle-giver but I will keep the tradition going in my own way—in your honor and because doing so makes my heart a little lighter.