Growing up, sugary cereals were only allowed for special occasions in my family. If we were on vacation my parents would succumb to the pleas of their three children and buy an eight pack brick of miniature cereal boxes: Sugar Pops, Apple Jacks, Frosted Flakes. We’d line them up on the dining room table, barter and trade and bicker as siblings do. My favorite was Honey Smacks, neon cartoon frog jubilant on the front, ready to leap. I liked the caramel flavor, the bean-like shape of the kernels in my small mouth.
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My mom would always wake with us, sit at the breakfast table no matter how early, clad in her cotton nightgown and cushioned slippers. The lone overhead light shone like a spotlight in our eat-in kitchen. I remember her stirring a pot of Cream of Wheat on the stove, my much older brother off at college, my younger brother still slumbering in his bed. I don’t remember talking much; we were both slow to articulate upon waking. The warmth of her presence, the hot cereal sweetened with a dollop of brown sugar, was the best kind of start to brave a new day.
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In residency we’d all gather for morning sign-out to discuss the overnight events on each patient under our care. Those of us on call would grab breakfast as soon as the hospital cafeteria opened; if one was tending to a patient, writing an order, responding to a page, the other would collect their food for them. We all knew the preferences of each other, constant companions for 36 hour shifts, 3 years of working 80 hour weeks together. You get to know how a person takes their coffee, how they like their oatmeal. There were cheesy eggs, regular eggs, strips of bacon, big vats in steel containers heated under red lamps. I liked getting a plate of scrambled eggs with a scoop of white rice, a couple of soy sauce packets tucked in my scrub shirt pocket. I’d mix them all together as I joined my colleagues for pre-dawn sign-out, a makeshift comfort food after an exhaustive night of work.
