The last of it
aBy PAT WICK
© Another Day in the Country
After my mother died, I found a loaf of her whole wheat bread in the freezer. She had dated it "Dec. 11" so she could know how long it had been there. It also was somewhat of a reminder as to what she'd put in the bread.
The recipe changed every single time that she baked. Sometimes on purpose — later by accident. Usually, she added potato water. Always, she used freshly ground wheat flour. We'd make periodic trips to the co-op in Tampa for wheat. She ground rye berries, too. (None of this already-processed-flour for her.) And then one time she accidentally got flax seed and rye berries mixed up and she ground up some flax also.
"Mom," I said, "the bread is exceptionally yummy and moist this time,"
She went to the cupboard and pulled down a sack from the health food store and said, "It's probably because of this flax seed. I thought I was grinding more rye flour and accidentally got in some of these." It was a winner.
Another time she sheepishly asked, "What do you think of the bread?" and we wondered why she should be asking because her bread was always wonderful — most especially good when it came fresh from the oven. "Well, this time I thought I was getting a jar of potato water out of the refrigerator and it ended up being kraut juice."
You should never ask what kraut juice was doing in Mom's fridge. Her refrigerator was always the great mystery, absolutely chucked full of stuff. She couldn't bear to throw out anything!
"You are going to find a lot of oleo containers in the fridge," said my Aunt Frieda after Mom died. "None of it tasted right to her. She'd open a carton of it when we sat down to eat breakfast and at the next meal it wasn't right either and she'd open another one." Frieda was right — there must have been eight of those cartons on the top shelf. I think I emptied 35 little fruit jars (her favorite storage container) when I cleaned the refrigerator.
All of these thoughts and more went through my mind as I cut a slice of Mom's bread. "This is the last of it," I said to myself. Somehow it didn't seem right to be eating the very last bread you'll ever taste that your very own mother made, without some fanfare — something. Ten or 20 years from now, like vintage wine, a loaf of Mom's bread would mean a lot to some great-grandchild — who isn't even born yet — sitting down at the table.
I called my sister. "I found a loaf of Mom's bread. Come share it with me."
"It's the noodles that I'm going to miss most," said my sister, as we sat eating bread and butter. "I never learned how to make them."
"I sorta know how," I told her. Jess didn't really think she could trust the word, "sorta."
Being a vegetarian, Mom really didn't like meat stored in her freezer along side the noodles and the bread. The other day, we were bringing home groceries. Tooltime Tim was carrying things in from the truck and helping squirrel them away. "Am I allowed to put meat in the freezer now?" he wanted to know. We said he could and he headed for the garage Amana. "Hey," he called, "I found a dish of Mom's macaroni and cheese in here! Let's have it on the weekend when I'm off work."
Cooking was the way my mother showed her love. "Would you like something to eat?" she'd ask the minute you hit the door. "A cookie? Some ice cream? How about let's make some sauerkraut and mashed potatoes — and we'll save the potato water for my bread."
It's another day in the country and I'm going to scour the freezer for another loaf of Mom's bread — there's got to be another one somewhere down in the bottom. Mom is gone, but her spirit lives on as we sort, store, and give away the last of it!
