Tag: caffeinatedchaos

It was just the Prologue…

Today marks a year since I boarded the plane without you. It all happened so fast. We were both last minute getting there. When my phone was ringing as it came out of the x-ray machine, I didn’t expect to hear what I heard on the other end. You brought your expired passport. I panicked. I didn’t know what to do. By the time I got to the gate they were starting to board. I didn’t have time to think. There was no time. I was frantic in my mind trying to figure it out. I always figure it out. So I got on the plane.

I spent the entire flight looking up alternate flights and trying to find a way for you to get there in time. There were options. None of them were a guarantee. I don’t know if you didn’t want to try or if you felt so defeated that you didn’t have it in you to try, but in the end you didn’t.

I had never seen you not have it all together. You were the calm one. The one who went with the flow no matter how rough the waters were. Not this time. This time I could hear it in your voice. You were lost. You had let me down. You felt a guilt I’m almost certain you weren’t used to. I didn’t get mad. I don’t think you knew how to process me not getting mad. Mad you could handle. You could combat it. Disappointment and guilt were foreign to you and you had no defense against either.

In my eyes, this trip was supposed to be the start of the next chapter for us, not the end of the book. You not making the flight changed our whole story. A story that seems unfinished. I will wait forever and a day for the sequel. In the meantime, not a day goes by that I don’t wish I hadn’t gotten on that plane.

Sugar, Spice, and Stubbornness

Have you ever had a family member that you constantly butt heads with because you’re so much alike, but at the same time love them extra for it? I’ve had a few. Most people who know me would probably expect me to say my daughter or my father. And they wouldn’t be wrong. But those stories are for another time. This story is about another woman. Man, was she feisty. She’s where I get my attitude… er um… I mean, charm from.

Some of my most cherished memories involve my grandmother and our shared love for baking. She’s the one who taught me and made me fall in love with it. When I was little, my grandparents moved to a warmer climate. We’d visit them every Easter, and they’d come back around Christmas and again in the summer. They always stayed with us. She and I would argue almost the entire time. Except in the kitchen.

In the kitchen, I’d sit on the counter and help her cook or bake. Usually bake, since I was way more into sweets than steak and potatoes at that age. And there was something magical about baking. When you cook a steak, it still looks like a steak. Spaghetti still looks like pasta, meat, and sauce. But baking? Eggs, flour, sugar… they become something completely different. Not only that, but you can use those same ingredients to make something else entirely. If that’s not magic, I don’t know what is.

I’ll never forget frosting Christmas cookies with her every year. She’d spend days baking before they even made the trip. She and my grandpa would drive, and she’d bring suitcases full of cookies, bars, and candies. It took a small army of us grandkids to decorate the cutouts. Good thing we were all willing to work for cookies.

And she didn’t stop baking once she got to our house. Not even close. There were buckeyes, pastries for Christmas morning, pies for New Year’s Day. Everything was delicious, but nothing compared to her chocolate cake. It was so rich and decadent, and the frosting? Fantastic!

I used to be the lucky one with her best recipes. The ones she’d marked up in the cookbook with her own notes and tweaks. My parents had that cookbook for years, but when they retired and decided to sell everything and live in their motorhome, the cookbook didn’t make the cut. If I’d known, I would’ve driven the three hours to rescue it.

So yeah, as much as she and I didn’t always see eye to eye, we came together in that kitchen with its orange countertops and psychedelic olefin carpet. That’s where my dreams were born.

And now I’m making chocolate cake this weekend.