"No one wants to know what you ate for lunch"

'Lunch' on our Patagonia trip in 2005.

This week in Manningham library a book beside the photocopier caught my eye. It was about blogging and it proclaimed loudly (in red) on its front cover:

No one wants to know 
what you ate for lunch.

So I ask myself: How can Ben’s blog continue meaningfully without degenerating into something akin to stories about what Ben had for lunch?

Until I die, I will of course (as his mother) reflect gladly on all the lunches he ate; what he ate, how he ate them, what he said when he was eating them and who was with him at those meals.

But I also realise that the publicly interesting/funny stories about Ben are running out and that perhaps you don’t really want to know what he ate for lunch! More to the point, if this blog continues, I wonder if it shouldn’t be about more than just funny stories about Ben.

Do we stop? Do we have a shift of emphasis? If so, to what? What would Ben say from his side of the grave?

Old friends and arm wrestling-from Lindy

Ben’s birthday has become a time to meet up with old friends who we don’t see much anymore.

This was said to me on more than one occasion a month ago when we celebrated his birthday.

It was a time of good friends and lots of laughter, good wine, plenty of food and a chance at winning the third annual Ben Mulherin-inspired, hands-free, Allen’s snake- tying competition (I think we will have to award prizes next year as some people are becoming quite serious about it!)

I am also wondering if his birthday formalities might extend to an arm wrestling competition. I’ll include this old memory from Dave to explain why:

I remember in the arm wrestle competitions at Theos he’d always win, so last year (January 2008) he retired and decided not to compete because it looked bad that a team member would win every year...  haha!

Pizza memories at Gino's

“Our grief journeys are not about closure, they are about adjustment and staying connected.”

When I look back on memories people have written about Ben, they are often about food, fun, friends and faith.

Jonty writes:

Ben was one of the pioneers of the after church, Sunday night, expedition down Lygon Street to our favourite pizzeria Papa Gino’s.  It’s difficult to summarise his eating preferences other than to say he seemed to favour quantity over quality. 

Whether it was chicken parmagiana the size of a pizza or a pizza the size of a chicken hutch, Ben would eat it all. He even took an interest in other people’s dishes, once commenting that a friend’s pizza of preference (No. 21 Ortolana with hot salami) was a “pretty pizza”.   

This photo was taken in May 2008, just before Ben was diagnosed with cancer. He didn’t want to stop and smile as he was too hungry. It looks like he was waiting to attack a large No. 17 Bolognese.

The phrase that Jonty quotes of a “pretty pizza” is so Ben that I can hear his voice in my head.

The after church Sunday night sojourns to Papa Gino’s with number 21s, and 17s, continue.

Is there pizza in heaven?