Maybe if I tell this story, I won’t need to keep this plastic screw-top bouillon jar anymore. It’s not even a nice jar, but every time I think of recycling it, I stop.

It’s almost eight years old. I know that because it’s the same age as Alice. The day she was born, I paced for hours like a cartoon expectant daddy. When I could finally see my sister and her baby, I was ready to pop with relief and elation and gratitude and and and.

Melissa was put on a liquids-only diet for a bit, probably sixteen hours, maybe even less. Alice was in the NICU and I couldn’t squeesh her little face yet, so to give me something to do, Melly sent me out to source some nutritious liquids. I went to Whole Foods, because if clear liquids were called for, then dammit, I would procure the finest clear liquids to be had.

I bought this BOU bouillon in all three flavors. I bought maybe a half-dozen fancy juices, I bought oxygenated rainwater, I bought exotic herbal teas, I bought every possible thing that might qualify as “clear liquid.” I was so high. I was out of my mind. When I checked out, it was pretty late and the store was mostly empty, but I told the strangers at the register (yes, me, starting convos with strangers!) all about why I was buying these things, because my beautiful brave sister had brought us a baby girl, and look at this picture, look how gorgeous!

Melissa was wondering where the hell I had disappeared to when I came back to the hospital with bags and bags of fancy-pants liquid nourishment and started stocking her little hospital-room cabinet. It was ridiculous. She couldn’t have drunk all this stuff in a month, which is why I ended up taking it home with me. But she appreciated the effort, I think. More than that, she was just astonished. I remember her voice exactly when she shook her head and said, “Oh, Meg, the things you can’t do…and then the things you can…!”

I got to the end of all this bouillon eventually. It took several years. The beef flavor cubes outlived Melissa, even. And now this damn junky container is the last piece of that night…except for Sweet Alice J. herself, of course. Which is not nothing.