The Tiger Rice Cooker

Remember I said “strange” would not be the right word to describe Terry?

On our first "date" ever, with the confidence of a man revealing a great secret, he told me he owned a Tiger rice cooker. Not that he cooked. Not that he loved rice. Just that he had this rice cooker, and that it was important. He said it the way someone might confess to owning a sailboat or a rare book.

I laughed so hard my stomach hurt. Who says that to a woman on a first date?

Terry did.

And somehow, that was exactly how he got me.

Years later, we tried to unpack that moment. He still couldn’t explain why he brought it up. He said he must have been nervous. I think the truth is simpler. When people are nervous, they tell you what matters.

When I visited him in Tucson, he insisted on taking me to the store where he bought it. Not casually. This was a pilgrimage. He told me how he asked the saleswoman for the best rice cooker they had. She climbed a ladder to the very top shelf, where dust had settled like snow, and brought down this small, unassuming machine.

"The best of all rice cookers," she said.
"Small. Expensive. Perfect for two people."

That rice cooker lived with Terry for a couple of years before I did. It followed him quietly, like a good habit. And when Terry passed on, it stayed. Still here. Still steady. Still doing exactly what it was designed to do.

We have used it for more than two decades.

Think about that.

Decades of rice. Of meals that weren’t planned but happened anyway. Of conversations that wandered and returned. Of jokes told too many times and never enough. Every click of the switch brings back the same small chorus of memories. Terry standing in the kitchen. Terry explaining something unnecessary. Terry being quietly proud of owning the best version of a very ordinary thing.

Some objects are anchors. They hold time without asking for attention.

This rice cooker does not grieve. It does not remember. But it witnesses. It has seen us hungry and tired and content. It has steamed rice while life unfolded around it, one unremarkable, beautiful evening at a time.

I still smile when I use it.

Because love does not always announce itself loudly.

Sometimes it shows up as rice. Perfectly cooked. Again.