Dangling the Dough

I stared at his flannel shirt. He looked much younger than his eighty-six years. His mind however far exceeded his age to the point most of his memories were locked deep in his brain as to open the way for rare moments of clarity. His moments of presence had lessened lately. Maybe that’s why my sister and my brothers visit him less. And maybe why I visit him more.

The journey with my grandfather started years ago when my mom was still alive. As teens, we would visit his long-term care facility to see the youngest patient in the building. With early onset dementia, we celebrated birthdays and holidays in the residents’ dining area or in his room if his grouchy side won the game with his mind. My mom was a regular. She came every week and brought him homemade goodies and other treats. His favorites were bakery items from my grandma’s original recipes.

“This is Carole’s,” he would say when he recognized the taste of her lattice crumble coffee cake.

My grandma left the family unexpectedly, way before the expiration date we all had in our minds. If she hadn’t had a mini stroke near the staircase, grandpa would have saved her instead of holding pieces of her together until the paramedics arrived. The moment scared his ticker and his mind. Coincidence or not, his downward spiral started before the grass grew green on my grandma’s grave.

“Your brought me Carole’s fudge,” he paused looking at me between slice one and two. “Creams it by hand she does. Gives it extra sweetness.”

As the family fudge master, I bring him fudge around Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.

He knows when it’s approaching Christmas. He likes to look at the lights on the tree in the lobby and hear the high school student choirs tour the hallways. He also somehow remembers that his daughter, my mom, died after Christmas.

He has repeated similar words every year for the last four years when I visit on the days with shorter light. “Passed in her sleep without a good night kiss.” 

The nurses say the holiday decorations momentarily jumpstart a small fraction of his long-term memory. I like to think his love still remains in his heart.

My mom died suddenly leaving us no answers and no plans for grandpa. The combined smarts of me and my three siblings sorted through paperwork and legalese to bury our mom and arrange for the continued care of grandpa. We closed accounts and distributed physical belongings to help fill the loss. No arguing or squabbling of who received what. Only a longing that our family bedrock left a void in so many ways.

With all of the firsts in the year after her death, my siblings and I had forgotten about a family heirloom not in the distribution pile. My grandma’s state-fair winning cupboard cookie recipe that my mom inherited on paper and responsibility had disappeared. While we were allowed to help mix or take the cookies out of the oven when we were young, none of us were allowed to even be present before the ingredients were measured and in the bowls.

“Got those cookies for me?” Gramps asks each time I visit. “Those are my favorite.”

He may not be able to button his shirt or remember if combed his hair, but he can describe the cupboard cookies as if they visibly sat in front of him. Maybe in his mind they do.

I remembered a few of the core recipe ingredients. My brother surprisingly remembered not only the almond extract, but the amount needed: one-quarter teaspoon. My sister remembered the dark brown sugar. My oldest brother and her disagreed on the amounts.

“Vie tells me one cup,” I told him over the phone.

“She’s crazy. It was a lot less than that.” I could hear him opening and closing the kitchen drawers trying to find the one with the measuring cups.

After several failed batches, I got what I believed was close to the original recipe and made them for Gramps.

“There’s something missing,” he told me nibbling on one while pushing the cookie tin aside.

“Do you know what I might be missing Gramps?” I asked him.

“Carole always added a pinch of that and a drop of this,” he paused. “Or was it a quart and a furlong of each?”

I had to chuckle at his measuring units.

I made my brothers and sister taste them too. We all agreed ingredients were missing. They ate the cookies anyway.

“You can’t eat them and not help me figure this out,” I pleaded at a nephew’s birthday party.

After suggesting absurdities like kitty litter and alfalfa sprouts, they gave me their real suggestions.

“Honey”

“Molasses”

“Nutmeg”

I recalled the cookie’s sweetness, stickiness, and nutty flavor. All the additions could be right. And they all could be wrong.

I spent weekends adjusting the recipe a half cup more or a teaspoon less and then took them to Gramps for the tastings.

He told me the same sentence three times. “There’s something missing.” Judge Judy got more of a rouse out of him than my begging for further explanation from his taste buds.

My siblings thought I was nuts – working too hard at making cookies that may never exist again.

“I can’t give up now.” I told them at Thanksgiving. “I believe I am one element away from success.”

I Googled “secret ingredients in cookie recipes” and found what I believed was my hidden treasure – chopped dried prunes.

“You think Gamma’s cookies also helped regulate our bowel movements?” my sister snickered as she read the dietary benefits of a daily prune bite and watched me stir the dark specks into the batter.

I packaged my latest offering in foil and prayed I had found the correct combination. For him. For my grandma and my mom. For my siblings.  For my sanity.

I uncovered the cookies and watched Gramps take a bite. He chewed longer this time and swallowed harder.

“There’s something missing.”

The three words I did not want to hear. I was out of options. I tried to be positive and pleasant during my visits, but something slipped.

“Gramps, you can’t leave me dangling,” I yelled so loud that one of his aides came rushing in.

“You okay there, Mr. Boston?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he joked. “I was just telling this cute young lady how my wife used to put a dangle of bourbon in these cookies to woo the judges at the state fair.”

Bourbon? The missing ingredient was liquor.

My mouth fell open so wide that Gramps pointed me to his toothbrush. “Use mine if you need to get the bits of cookie out from between your teeth.”

I asked him how much bourbon I should add to my next batch of cookies for him.

“A dangle,” he repeated.

“Which means what Gramps?”

He looked at me with twinkling eyes removed of the glaze that clouded his sight like the dementia clouded his mind.

“You know, the difference between a taste and drunk. Got it?” He grinned looking at the empty mini bar sized bottles of booze that sat on his armoire. 

For once, I understood exactly what he meant.