Baking with Nanna

One of my fondest memories from childhood was baking cookies with my grandmother. Of course, life gets in the way as you grow older and at 19 years old, I hadn't baked with Nanna in a very long time. 

Then my mother died. It wasn't an accident or a murder or anything like that. No, it was good old cancer... 

......

I was 14 and it was bedtime for my sister and I. My sister had jumped into bed with my mom, begging her to allow her to sleep there rather than her own bed. My mom had surprisingly relented.

At around 3am I woke from a dreamless sleep to find my sister in my bedroom doorway crying softly. I sat up with a feeling of dread gripping my stomach.

"What's wrong?" I asked, pulling the covers back and getting out of bed. My legs shook but I had no idea why I was afraid.

She turned her tear stained face up to me and sobbed, "Something's wrong with mom. I can't wake her up."

I felt ice grip my heart and I brushed past her into the hall, heading for my mother's room. I was dreading looking inside that bedroom. When I got there, I felt for the light switch and flicked it on. I was ill prepared for what I saw. 

My mom was laying on her back across the bed diagonally. Her eyes were open, and a strange gurgling sound emitted from her throat. My mother was rarely ever sick. She never got colds or the flu. In my perception back then, my mom was indestructible. She was this all-encompassing god-like figure to me. I was afraid of her and yet I loved her in a very suffocated way. She was the impenetrable bubble that enclosed me and shut me away from the world.

I leaped onto the bed in a sheer panic and gripping her shoulders, I jerked her into a sitting position and shook her as hard as I could.

"Mommy, wake up!" I screamed, tears now running down my own cheeks.

The gurgling sound stopped, but my mother just sat there, staring straight ahead, completely unresponsive.

We didn't have a phone at the time, our bill hadn't been paid. So, in my bare feet and nightgown, I ran as fast as I could next door and pounded until our neighbors woke up and came out. 

I did my best to describe what was going on, in spite of my hysterical sobbing. It felt like a waking nightmare. Surreal and terrifying.

The husband ran back to our house with me while his wife dialed 911.

The next thing I knew, there were paramedics and police surrounding my mother in the small bedroom. 

She came out of the grand maul seizure to find herself surrounded by emergency personnel along with her two daughters who were crying and obviously frightened.

They got her onto a gurney took her to the hospital where they ran tests and scans on her brain. I remember being allowed to see her just before they did the CAT scan. She had a cage-like contraption on her head. They had drilled into her skull and then screwed the thing onto her head in four places. I remember the trickles of blood dripping from the screws down her forehead. It was something straight out of a horror film and it was happening to my mother.

.....

They discovered a tumor on her frontal lobe, right on her center of communication. She was scheduled for surgery, and it was performed a few days later. With a scalpel. This was about a year or two before laser technology was implemented into the operating room.

The surgery took about eight hours and when she came out and we were brought to her bedside, she couldn't speak, couldn't write, and she seemed to have shrunk to about half her original size. That bubble I mentioned shattered the minute I walked in and saw her lying there, helpless and small. The fear dissipated with it.

......

When my mom died a few years later, I was 19 years old and after being sheltered and deprived of the opportunity to gradually grow accustomed to the cruelty of the world that existed beyond our house and our church and school, I was struggling to adjust.

I finally decided it had been too long since I'd spent an afternoon baking with my grandmother in her cozy, familiar kitchen.

I went to her house a few days after my mother's funeral. My Nanna and my mom didn't see eye to eye on many things, but the way we were treated was at the top of the list. They argued constantly about such things as Christmas and other holidays. Nanna hated that her granddaughters were deprived of things that brought so much joy to other children. We had to watch as other families got into the holiday spirit and had so much fun. Meanwhile we did our best to pretend we thought it was silly to believe in Santa.

Nanna asked how I was doing, and my shoulders drooped.

"Is it bad that I haven't even cried?" I asked her, guilt flooding my soul.

She put her hands on her hips and looked at me with narrowed eyes. Finally, she shook her head and as she turned toward the kitchen she said, "I really wouldn't be surprised if you felt nothing but relief!"

We went in and began collecting the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies. I thought about what she had said, and I was surprised to realize that she was not far off. My feelings were confusing to me and getting used to the idea that my mother had been abusive and that other kids really were not treated the way we were, that it wasn't normal and wasn't right... well it was a process.

Nanna asked me to go to her walk-in pantry and get the chocolate chips.

I went to the pantry door and opened it. My heart leaped into my throat when I saw a little girl standing there searching the shelves. I looked back at Nanna and almost asked her who it was, but something stopped me. Instead, I went inside and softly closed the door.

The child looked up at me and suddenly my throat constricted. Tears filled my eyes. I don't know how it was possible and to this day I wonder if I had been dreaming, but... the little girl was me. She was me at the age of around 8 or 9.

Her eyebrows furrowed when she saw me, as though she felt like she should know who I was but didn't.

"Who are you?" She asked in a stern voice. "Where's Nanna?"

I held my hands up, palms facing outward and said, "Please don't be scared, I won't hurt you!"

Her eyes narrowed and she said, "I'm not scared."

Her head tilted to one side, and she said, "You look familiar to me. Are you my cousin?"

It took me a minute to reply. Finally, I shook my head.

"N-no, I'm not your cousin, I'm..."

I didn't know what to tell her. I tried to imagine if I would believe me if I told myself the truth.

"I'm you."

I said it with a shrug. I know me and honesty is always best with me. I do not appreciate being lied to in order to shield my feelings or to avoid making me angry.

For a minute or two we just stared at each other with wide-eyed wonder. 

After a minute or two she said, "Okay. I believe you. Why are you here?"

"I was going to ask you the same thing." I replied.

She rolled her eyes and said, "Well I'm baking cookies with Nanna, obviously."

"Me too." I laughed nervously.

"Does Nanna know your here?" Her eyes were suddenly wide as the situation seemed to sink in. "This would really freak her out and mom might get mad if she sees you. She won't be back for a while, but if you're staying here, we need to hide you."

I shook my head and said, "No, no, I don't think it's like that. If anything, I think you are in the future, not me in the past."

It struck me how pretty she was. I had always thought I was ugly back then. When I saw my child self from different eyes, I couldn't understand why.

I shifted my feet and leaned against the shelf. I looked down at the floor.

"Mom died."

I said it so bluntly and so suddenly it shocked both of us. I had no idea why I had just blurted it out. I immediately wondered what I was thinking, and should I have told her that? What kind of effect would this have on the following years of my life?

She stared at me as though I had grown a second head.

"I don't know why I told you that. I probably shouldn't have, I'm so sorry!"

She shook her head, tears starting to form in her eyes. She stepped closer to me and hesitantly put her arms around my waist. Surprised, I looked down at her and finally hugged her back, lightly at first. Then my heart shattered, and I sobbed. It felt like a dam broke inside me and I held onto her as though my life depended on it. I was not crying for my mother. I was not crying over the loss of her. I was crying for the little girl who stood there in my arms, so strong and so unwavering. Yet she had endured so much pain and so much loneliness. She was still enduring it and would have to for several more years and I wanted so badly to protect her.

She held onto me, her face buried in my chest. When the tears subsided finally, I let her go and she smiled up at me.

"Do you feel better, now?" She asked with a proud look on her face as though she had just fixed me and was admiring her handiwork. In a way, she had.

I nodded, wiping my face on the back of my sleeve, and let out a small, embarrassed laugh.

"I'm sorry." I said.

"Don't be. You're strong and you'll be okay. I can tell. You will be okay without her."

I nodded. I knew that what she said was true.

"I wish..." I started, but she interrupted me as if she already knew what I would say.

"At first I thought you were here to rescue me somehow. You know... from her. But that couldn't happen because it would change things and create a... ummm.. what's that word? Par... it starts with a P..."

"Paradox"

"Yes. A paradox." She shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest. "No. I think I was here to rescue you instead. And don't feel bad, you already know I'll be alright. Now go and live the rest of your life."

She pushed me gently toward the door.

I opened the door, but before I stepped out, I looked back at her and said, "She's just a person. She isn't God and she isn't right. By the way, you are not ugly. You are beautiful." 

Her eyes widened.

"Do you mean that?" She asked.

"Would I lie to you?" I raised an eyebrow.

She grinned and shook her head.

"No, I don't think you would!"

I just smiled at her and turned to open the door. When I looked back, she was gone.

Nanna was just coming around the corner with a worried look on her face.

"There you are! I was beginning to think you'd forgot where the pantry was and got lost!"

"No Nanna. I didn't. In fact, I've never felt more found in my life!"

We linked arms and walked back into the kitchen to bake cookies.

From the author:

My grandmother died when I was really little but that was really what it was like between her and my mom. The rest of this story is true except I didn't meet my childhood self in the flesh and blood, but there was a moment in front of a therapist where I did break down and cry for the innocent little girl that I used to be.