French Fries Are Their Own Food Group

I have long believed that french fries are their own food group, and I am not especially interested in being corrected.

There has never been a french fry I didn’t like.

Shoestring. Crinkle cut. Steak fries. Waffle fries. Homemade fries in the air fryer—which, for the record, absolutely count as healthy food because they were made at home and involved an air fryer.

These are the rules.

But somewhere along the way, french fries became more than just one of my favorite foods. They became part of some of the harder chapters of my life, too.

And somehow, that makes me love them even more.

French Fries and Pepsi

In 2000, I was diagnosed with dysautonomia.

There was a season during that time when I wasn’t able to eat and had to receive nutrition through an NG tube. If you’ve never had an NG tube, I’ll spare you the details. I’ll just say there wasn’t much about the situation that felt particularly fun.

My youngest daughter was about five years old at the time. And apparently, even at five, she understood something I’m still learning all these years later:

Sometimes when life gets really serious, you have to find a way to make it a little less serious.

So she started “labeling” my tube-feeding bag with whatever meal she decided I was having.

Some days it was: Pepperoni pizza and Pepsi.

Other days: French fries and Pepsi.

Never mind the fact that what was actually dripping through the tube looked nothing like either of those things.

According to my five-year-old, Mom was enjoying a perfectly respectable dinner.

And honestly?

It helped.

It didn’t change the diagnosis.
It didn’t make the feeding tube disappear.
It didn’t suddenly make that season easy.

But it made us laugh.

And sometimes laughter is enough to soften the edges of a hard day.

And Then There Were Fries Again

Years later, cancer entered the story.

After my first oncology appointment, my husband and daughters and I went out for lunch.

The appointment had been a lot. There were statistics. Treatment plans. Chemotherapy drugs. Side effects.

I learned I would receive four rounds of AC chemotherapy every other week, followed by twelve weeks of Taxol.

I was trying to absorb what triple-negative breast cancer meant, what treatment would look like, whether I could keep working, and what all of this was going to mean for our family.

You know—just your average light lunch conversation.

And then we went to a nice restaurant.

And I ordered french fries.

Because apparently there are some things in life that remain consistent.

Cancer may have entered the picture. Chemotherapy may have been waiting around the corner.

But fries were still fries. And lunch was still lunch.

That afternoon has stayed with me for reasons that go far beyond what we ate.

It was also the lunch where I told my daughter that, as I looked back over my life, there was one dream I regretted never pursuing.

I had always wanted to write.

And in the very matter-of-fact way daughters sometimes have, she looked at me and said:

“Start a blog.”

So I did.

Funny how much can happen over a basket of fries.

Hope Doesn't Always Look Profound

I think sometimes we expect hope to look impressive.

A breakthrough.
A perfectly timed Bible verse.
A giant answer to prayer.
A sudden surge of courage that makes us feel ready to face whatever comes next.

And sometimes hope does look like that.

But I’ve lived long enough now to know that sometimes hope is much smaller.

Sometimes hope is a five-year-old writing “French fries and Pepsi” on a feeding bag.
Sometimes it’s sitting around a restaurant table after an oncology appointment, trying to make sense of words you never wanted to hear.
Sometimes it’s deciding that even though life has just changed dramatically, you’re still going to order lunch.
Sometimes it’s laughing when there really isn’t much to laugh about.
Sometimes it’s finding one ordinary thing that still feels familiar when everything else feels strange.

And yes.

Sometimes hope looks like french fries.

The Small Things Matter

One of the things hard seasons have taught me is that we don’t always need to manufacture some giant, meaningful moment.

We can let small things be small things.

A good cup of coffee.
A ridiculous text from a friend.
Sunshine coming through the window.
Your favorite song.
A five-year-old with a marker and a very creative interpretation of tube feeding.
A basket of hot french fries.

Those things don’t erase grief or fear or illness.

They aren’t supposed to.

They simply remind us that even in the middle of the hard thing, there is still life happening around us.

There is still laughter.
There is still connection.
There are still tiny moments worth enjoying.

And maybe that is part of what it means to live with hope.

Not pretending the hard thing isn’t hard.

Just refusing to believe the hard thing gets to have every single part of the story.

So yes, I will continue insisting that french fries are their own food group.

And if anyone needs me, I’ll probably be standing beside the air fryer making the healthy kind.

Because obviously those count. 🍟

A question to carry:
What small, ordinary thing has brought a little joy into one of your harder seasons?