Remembering My Father’s Sweet Legacy of Love
By Sheryl Berk, NYT Bestselling Author
A week after my father died, the bagel shop across the street from our apartment shuttered and closed. It struck me as odd, almost eerie, since it was so much a part of who my dad was, a place that knew not just his name but also knew us—my three-year-old daughter, my husband, and myself—through the photos he proudly pulled out of his wallet while placing an order. I couldn’t imagine it existing without him and then, one night, it vanished into thin air, the blue awning stripped bare, the windows boarded up without explanation.
I didn’t think about it that first week. I was so busy; no one warns how mired in paperwork and logistics you become in the days after a family death. I decided robotic efficiency was the only way to get through it: don’t think, just do. When people called or emailed to ask how I was doing, I didn’t get into details. I just kept on going, convinced someone had to keep their wits about them. My mom was a mess and my sister was inconsolable, but I didn’t have that luxury.
Like the bagel store’s closing, my father’s massive coronary came out of the blue early one morning. The time he had with us was never long enough; he always wanted more.
One morning, while bringing my daughter to preschool, I was buckling her into her stroller when she suddenly swung around in her seat, puzzled by something.
“Mommy, where did my muffins go?” We were standing in front of the vacant bagel shop, the wind tearing at the “Retail Space for Rent” sign tacked to the door.
“The store closed. It isn’t there anymore,” I replied as I reached into her backpack. “Here, have some animal crackers.”
“Mommy, did you hear me?” she said firmly. “I want my muffins.” By that, she meant the ones my father always brought her from the bagel shop: tiny, bite-sized chocolate chip ones with a hint of powdered sugar on top.
“Carrie, the muffins are gone. The store is gone. See? Gone!” I raised my voice and her eyes welled with tears.
“I need them! I want them back!”
I stopped pushing the stroller and knelt next to her. “I know you do,” I said softly. I could relate—I wanted to shriek and throw a childish tantrum, too.
Like the bagel store’s closing, my father’s massive coronary came out of the blue early one morning. He had been over for dinner a few nights before and asked as he was buttoning up his winter coat when he would see us again. The time he had with us was never long enough; he always wanted more.
“Later in the week,” I waved him off. “I’ll let you know.”
I never saw it coming. If I had, I wouldn’t have rushed him off, blaming my daughter’s bedtime and my looming deadlines. I might have listened more carefully, hugged him a little bit longer and tighter. I might have been kinder and less short-tempered when he teased. Over the past few years, he had been slowing down, huffing and puffing a bit, but there were never any major red flags. He was only 71 and happy—deliriously happy—being a grandfather. He would park his grey Toyota Corolla on our street and then pop into the bagel store for “the usual for my granddaughter.” The dozen mini muffins became a fixture in our kitchen—as did his presence twice a week for the first three years of my child’s life.
He’d come barreling through the front door proclaiming, “Grandpa has your muffins! Say hi to Grandpa!”
At the time, I was editor-in-chief of a big weekly magazine, working endless hours. My parents made up for my absence at home, coming to babysit and entertain Carrie as well as easing my guilt. Not that they ever saw it as a burden: she was their only grandchild, their pride and joy, and my dad made it clear he would never arrive empty-handed for a visit. She looked forward to his coming and greeted him with unbridled enthusiasm.
I knew how much she enjoyed his presence, and I worried how she would react to the news of his passing—that’s what the preschool child psychologist and our pediatrician told us to call it. Not death, not loss, just “passing on,” as if he had moved out of state or graduated. But now she needed to know more: why the visits they had both treasured came to an abrupt halt. I tried to explain it as we continued our stroll to school: “Carrie,” I said gently. “Gee can’t come anymore. He got very sick. I’m so sorry.”
The words sunk in slowly. “No more Gee? Ever?”
I shook my head and reached for her hand. “No, but it’s okay. I’ll buy you muffins, I promise.” I thought that would appease her. After all, wasn’t it only the chocolate fix she craved?
“Gee knows the ones I like,” she insisted. She sighed, her heart heavy.
“I know,” I replied. “I miss him, too.” We dried our eyes and agreed we would walk in search of a new bagel store. When we found one open, a line out the door, she hopped out of the stroller and we patiently waited our turn. Finally, at the counter, we spotted a few mini muffins left—but only blueberry and lemon poppy seed.
“Do you have any chocolate chip?” I asked the man waiting on us.
He ducked in the back and reappeared with a fresh tray, hot out of the oven. The smell wafted over me, familiar and comforting.
That day, Carrie and I split the black and white cookie and we sat on the steps outside her preschool, never once checking the time. She was late for story time and I missed my editorial meeting, but that was fine. Better than fine.
“We’ll take a dozen.”
Carrie tugged at my arm. “No!” She pointed instead to a black and white cookie. “I want that.”
“You sure? Not a Gee muffin?”
She wrinkled her nose. “No.”
I agreed. Without my father’s jovial presence, the muffins had lost their magic. I saw the name tag on the mustached man’s white apron. “No thank you, Aaron,” I said, reading it. It occurred to me that in all those years of living across the street, I never asked our bagel shop owner his name. I’m sure my dad knew it.
That day, Carrie and I split the black and white cookie and we sat on the steps outside her preschool, never once checking the time. She was late for story time and I missed my editorial meeting, but that was fine. Better than fine. It took more than a year for the vacant store to be replaced with a high-tech fitness club. Where bagels, cookies, and pastries once filled the windows, there were now people sweating on treadmills. I think my dad would have found that strange and funny, not a hindrance so much as an opportunity to explore the neighborhood further and make another friend behind a new bagel counter.
It’s been 17 years, and there is never a day I walk past a bagel store that I don’t take notice and smile. That was his gift to us: a memory as filled with love as those muffins were with chocolate chips.
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Sheryl Berk is a New York Times bestselling author and celebrity ghostwriter, as well as the former founding editor-in-chief of Life & Style Weekly. With her daughter, TikTok star Carrie Berk, she has written three bestselling children’s middle school book series. Her book Soul Surfer with Bethany Hamilton was adapted into a major motion picture, and she is currently at work on a collection of personal essays about life, love, and loss.