"I used to love to walk these streets of Flushing with Lelia and Mitt, bring them back here on Sunday trips during the summer. We would eat cold buckwheat noodles at a Korean restaurant near the subway station and then go browsing in the big Korean groceries, not corner vegetable stands like my father's but real supermarkets with every kind of Asian food. Mitt always marveled at the long wall of glassed-door refrigerators stacked full with gallon jars of five kinds of kimchee, and even he noticed that if a customer took one down the space was almost immediately filled with another. The kimchee museum, he'd say, with appropriate awe. Then, Lelia would stray off to the butcher's section, Mitt to the candies. I always went to the back, to the magazine section, and although I couldn't read the Korean well I'd pretend anyway...Eventually I'd hear Lelia's voice, calling to both of us, calling the only English to be heard that day in the store, and we would meet again at the register with what we wanted, the three of us, looking like a fmaily accident, gathering on the counter the most serendipitous pile. We got looks. Later, after he died, I'd try it again...but in the end we would separately wander the aisles not looking for anything, except at the last moment, when we finally encountered each other, who was not him." (345)The impact of this passage from the novel is mainly shown through the extensive use of imagery. In this specific passage, he describes every action that the family took as well as descriptions of places and things. He uses long sentences which makee it seem like he is writing this from whatever he's thinking instead of proofreading what he just wrote down. The long sentences with the multiple commas give off a feeling that the whole passage is an ongoing process of reminiscient thinking. It helps the readers to picture the whole setting with the restaurant, the street, and obviously the supermarket. The use of transition words also help to not only picture the setting but also the sequence of events. He kindly uses these transition words to help guide the readers through his day at the supermarket with his family.
Although this passage may seem to be just about a day at the supermarket, it has a much more deeper meaning as a whole. The last sentence that starts with "Later, after he died, I'd try it again" really shows part of his emotions that Henry didn't really express in the beginning of the novel. I can see that he is really suffering from Mitt's death and both he and Lelia are still hoping that it's not true. This scene is one of those instances when Henry goes into a flashback and shows how much he regrets or misses something. He really misses his son, obviously, but this goes back to the whole idea of how he regrets not saving Mitt. He has this guilty conscience that keeps piling up, and I think his thinking about the past and all the good memories help him to lower the guilt a bit. Really, the last sentence is what helps the author achieve his purpose of showing how much Mitt meant to Lelia and Henry, and how they are suffering even to this day.