Giving Up What One Loves

I am baking cookies today and thinking about my mother.  It was her great delight in life to be of service to others, and this often involved baking and cooking.  She was happy to provide cookies for any occasion, meals for a family having a difficult time, or a pie just to be kind to a neighbor.

As she aged, she did not want to give up on these things, so…

One day she baked a blueberry pie for a neighbor, but essential tremor is inherited in her family (which is why I now have it), and between the tremor and some weakness of age, she dropped the pie on the neighbor’s front steps making a huge blueberry mess.  She was upset, and I am sure, embarrassed.

The day she tripped and fell up the basement steps breaking her arm in three places, she had gone to the basement to get some potatoes to make a meal for a family who had just had a new baby.  The meal didn’t happen, and surgery followed by a long recovery did happen.

These things both occurred when she was in her early to mid-70s, along with another incident.  I asked her to bake cookies for an event at church.  My father was later furious with me and told me I was never to do that again.  She did not admit it, but he said that on the first try she had left out a major ingredient and had to throw out the whole batch and start over.  My dad was not kind when things of this nature happened.  I had asked her, because although I knew she was getting frail, I also knew how much she liked to contribute.

I don’t remember exact ages or sequence of these incidents, but I do know she went into a decline at age 74.  Up until that time, she could run circles around women 20 years younger.

I am now 73.  I am basically well, but I have recently been having joint pain in my hips.  It is becoming more difficult for me to stand in the kitchen for extended time periods, so I had decided that this holiday season, I would not bake Christmas cookies.  Ha-ha.  I have three occasions coming up for which I have been asked to bake cookies.  Did I say “no.”  Of course not.  I am my mother’s daughter, and I won’t stop because of some pain.  I will wait until I drop something, or fall up the steps, or get so confused that I mess up the recipe.  The difference will be, my husband won’t get upset about it.  He will hug me and say, “Let’s just go buy some cookies.”

Who knows…maybe I will be able to bake for another 20 years and won’t ever have to give up something that I genuinely love doing!