'Grow old with me' is such a wonderful, wistful sentiment

Robert Browning wrote these beautiful words:

Grow old along with me,

the best is yet to be,

the last of life, for which

the first was made.

Browning was an English poet of great esteem. His wife was another famous English poet, Elizabeth Barrett Browning. She was quite famous even before he was. Quite a couple.

Robert Browning, 1812-1889, was a poet, playwright and also a musician. He spoke five languages by the age of 14.

His wife was well known even in the U.S. She started writing poetry as a child and had health problems most of her life. They lived together in Italy for 15 years after they married. They were a very close. After she died, he moved back to England.

I thought Baheej and I would grow old together. Really old. But I was only 66 when Baheej died.

I know 66 is not young, but with the high average life expectancy these days, they say 60 is the "new 40." Anyway it happened much sooner than I expected. As I've said before, I thought Baheej would live way into his 90s. He had such a joyful and young personality. It was not meant to be, I guess. Why think of this now? I have been nostalgic lately.

I think this nostalgia was brought on by certain events I attended recently. One was a party where the women hosting it brought homemade food for lunch. There was a big plate of Rice Krispy treats. That's what we called them when I was a kid. They are basically Rice Krispies, the breakfast cereal, mixed together with melted marshmallow cream and left to cool, then cut in squares. Even children could make them, and did! I ate two of those!

A few days later, I attended a luncheon meeting where each attendee brought a favorite dish from their childhood. It was great fun and delicious. So it became an ethnic buffet. I brought a Swedish herring platter. There were lots of Scandinavian dishes including Swedish meatballs with lingonberries and some beautiful small Norwegian open-faced sandwiches with all the traditional toppings, including the unusual Norwegian cheese gjetost. I ate three or four of those. The gjetost is caramel brown color and has a sort of nutty flavor. Baheej loved that cheese; he discovered it on a sabbatical in Denmark, when he went on a side trip to Norway. He could buy it in Denmark, as well, and also here in the U.S. We usually had a piece in the refrigerator.

Nostalgia. There were so many dishes at this luncheon: Irish shepard's pie, Polish sausage and sauerkraut, German potato salad, Reuben sandwiches, Puerto Rico plantain tartlets. Nostalgia linked to food. An international buffet.

The point is: We never know when these nostalgic memories and feelings will sweep in. Triggers, of course. And food is one of those triggers. Associations in the mind just link one thought to another and, before we know it, we are somewhere else in time.

It's nice when it happens. Sometimes sad, but mostly nice in my experience.

• Susan Anderson-Khleif of Sleepy Hollow has a doctorate in family sociology from Harvard, taught at Wellesley College and is a retired Motorola executive. Contact her at sakhleif@comcast.net or see her blog longtermgrief.tumblr.com. See previous columns at www.dailyherald.com/topics/Anderson-Kleif-Susan.