GUEST ROOM | Grief in the Time of COVID-19

One of my favorite memories of Didi dadi is from the summer of my freshman year when I was doing an internship across the street from her apartment. I had gone over during my lunch break to find the dining room table overflowing with plates of fresh mango and lychee, cookies, savory Indian snacks and madeleines. Somewhere in the midst of catching up on my first year of college and her move to Chicago from the suburbs, I guess I mentioned that I liked the madeleines. When I got up to go home, Didi reached above the fridge for the round plastic container full of them and dumped the whole thing in a bag, insisting that I take the cakes as well as a fresh, round watermelon home with me. I convinced her to keep the watermelon, but I was eating madeleines for days.