FAMILY | SENIORS

The Best Secret: A Hidden Treasure Only Her Hands, Heart, and My Eyes Know

I will take the key to her eternal life

That moment when everything comes together.

A small action.

A caress.

An epiphany.

We stood at my mom’s kitchen counter. My visits aren’t terribly frequent. Living over a thousand miles away, and raising my 5-year-old grandson who is in school, limits the 2 ½ day travel to once, maybe twice a year.

My grandson and I were there in June for mom’s birthday.

I vowed in the past to stay far away from any cold months up north. Florida is my home and caters to my need for warmth.

“I’ll do Christmas in July if you want, but you’ll have to visit me if you want to celebrate in December.”

Steadfast in my assertions.

Stubborn.

This year something softened in my once adamant declaration. It crept in quietly and probably began as I pulled out of her driveway from the summertime visit.

We will return for Thanksgiving to enjoy the favorite holidays of yesteryear.

We will go back to spend more time with my 84-year-old mom.

And, to marvel over her secret treasure.

One day, others’ eyes will pass over it, and maybe stop to question why it exists. It looks like trash. To some, it is rubbish.

Perhaps the younger me would have prodded my mom to toss it. Minimize the clutter.

But not this.

As long as I live, it will never be thrown away, for this treasure, a gold mine really, embodies my mom and reveals much of her life.

Her fingers feathered across the top ever so lightly, and chagrin flooded her cheeks. The look in my mom’s eyes told a thousand stories.

Justifications followed, mixed with explanations, that all led to one thing.

Love.

It appears that this coveted and treasured cookbook is being held together by various additions of tape through the years.

Actually, the pages are bound by blood, sweat, tears, and love. Just a bit of blood. We nicknamed her “9 Finger Sue” for good reasons.

A slightly used copy of the book arrived just before my visit. She had searched it out and ordered it online.

My initial thought — guilty as charged — was to ask why she didn’t throw out the original.

Shame flickered in her eyes. I immediately felt embarrassed at my own knee-jerk reaction.

Regret had me backpedaling.

Because her eyes traveled to the faraway past filled with family gatherings as she put her hand on the old book and sighed.

She carefully, and ever so gently, flipped through the pages.

A story here, a memory there, infused her with light. For a moment, she was young and energized with the excitement of better times.

My mom has always been a fantastic cook and hostess. Her kids have grown and had kids, and those kids have had children of their own.

We are scattered, working, schooling, and often doing more self-focused activities. Too often. I recognize the same emptiness that plagues her as I near the end of my 50s.

My mom’s body has betrayed her with the rapidly flipping calendar.

Her ability to hold court with pride at the table she beautifully set and filled with her culinary creations has been stolen, along with her youth.

The dining room table, once filled with a boisterous clamoring, now sits silent and empty. The years of her being my Girl Scout troop’s Cookie Mom have long since faded.

Her mind drifted to specific Christmas festivities, an Easter dinner, a special birthday celebration. Memory lane included flashes of my dad, gone 25 years now, as he carved the turkey with great precision.

She located a recipe for a dish she brought to an ailing neighbor and her visiting family. “This was a big hit, Lisa, and it’s so easy to make!”

“And this one— it’s Alice’s favorite. She asks for it every year. Here’s your shrimp butter recipe, too, you’ll want that. I love that you stuff flank steak just like mine. You may even have perfected it. Look, it’s here on page 132.”

Her eyes teared, just the misty kind, and were quickly brushed aside.

I excitedly asked her, “Remember the peach cobbler? You stopped serving to pour grandpop some more coffee and clunked the side of his head with the carafe.”

Overwhelmed with emotional silliness, I took a picture of the book. At that moment, she understood I was not making fun of her for holding onto it but that I was compelled to preserve a memory of profoundness.

Life and love in the pages of a cookbook.

I begged her to keep it forever so one day I could treasure it, too.

Only she and I shared that moment.

And that moment is etched in my mind — life’s purpose revealed.

No one would or could understand the powerful understanding that coursed through me right there in her kitchen. It was about much more than a fragile and broken book.

So it is, my grandson and I will make a second trip to see her for Thanksgiving.

Coming upon that book changed me.

I watched her transport in time. I listened intently to the love she shared with each page turn.

Times have changed.

Lifestyles?

Changed.

Even the book, once crisp and stiff, has changed.

But my mom’s love?

Never.

Her spirit is everywhere she touches and the book holds much of it.

That cookbook is her hidden treasure. I witnessed magic with my own eyes. I will regale my own grown children with the stories I know.

Maybe I’ll embellish the tales I’m unsure of and fill in some more colorful blanks, just to ensure that my kids appreciate the value.

The power of my mom’s love remains in the pages.

And so it will for eternity if I have my way.

You know, stubborn.

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