Every Sunday morning my mother baked muffins. Bran, blueberry, cranberry, orange — the variety changed with the season and her mood. But there was always one extra-large muffin, and it was always mine. She never made a ceremony of it. She simply set it apart.
My mother was not a woman who said “I love you” easily.
Mum was stoic by nature. She had opinions in abundance — politics, hockey, fashion — and she’d share them without much invitation or room for debate. But emotions were another matter. I felt loved, certainly. I just rarely heard it said. Mum’s love language was food.
Our meals were good, nutritious, down-to-earth. Nothing fancy or adventurous — comfort food at its best. Meatloaf, mac and cheese, homemade soups and stews, pancakes and French toast.
Mum had the touch. I have most of her recipes, but I’ve never been able to reproduce the exact taste or texture. Her pie pastry was light and flaky — nothing like the cardboard crusts of store-bought pies. Her lemon pie was a particular favourite of my brother’s, with its tart filling and cloud of meringue. She made jam tarts for him often, and it gave her immense pleasure to watch him enjoy them.
I would come home from school to find bread dough rising under a blanket, cookies cooling on racks. At Christmas she baked for days — shortbread, butter tarts, mincemeat, cherry pound cake. Her shortbread was buttery perfection.
The years passed the way they do. We grew up, moved out, started our own lives. The family home in Quebec remained the fixed point — the place we returned to at Christmas, at Easter, at Thanksgiving, always to the smell of something in the oven. It was impossible to imagine my parents anywhere else.
Two years after we moved across the country from Quebec to British Columbia, my parents followed. They struggled with leaving the family home — forty years, a lifetime of meals and Sunday mornings. I worried their new condo would never feel quite right to me.
I shouldn’t have worried. The first time I visited after they’d settled in, I smelled it the moment I stepped off the elevator. Something familiar, something sweet. The closer I got to their door, the stronger it became. I opened the door and walked into the smell of fresh baking.
Home.
Six years before she died, Mum suffered a massive stroke. After that, there was no more baking. The last years of her life the kitchen was silent.
This year marks ten years since she passed. I still miss her every day. Mother’s Day arrives each spring and I think of all the women whose love language their children didn’t fully understand until it was gone. And sometimes, when I catch the smell of something sweet coming from a neighbour’s kitchen, I think of a Sunday morning, and a muffin set aside — just for me.
Please share with someone on Mother’s Day.
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.