I Stole My Husband's Bible
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By most standards, my mother didn't accomplish anything noteworthy in her 91 years.
She came from a Depression-era household, a row home filled by her parents and 10 siblings. They spoke one language.
She didn't finish high school.
Once she had her first child at age 28, she was never employed again.
My mother was married only once, for 50 years. She bore four children, and buried one.
Ten miles was about the limit of how far she'd drive from her home. I don't recall her ever driving in the city. The farthest west she traveled was Illinois, and she never left the lower 48 states.
She never posted a single thing on social media. In fact, she never owned a cell phone or used a computer.
Her home was decorated simply; the only wall decorations I recall are a crucifix and a mirror. At Christmas, we added matching Styrofoam Santa heads and a beer can wreath. At least until Home Interiors and Gifts found her in the 1980s.
Over a few days greeting her friends and family at the funeral home this summer, her legacy become clear:
She baked.
There were three things she baked a lot of. For many, many years.
Mum's cookies were not fancy. She readily admitted they weren't pretty cookies. We didn't own a cookie press, and for my wedding, she asked friends to bake whatever were not drop cookies (like lady locks or pizzelles) for the cookie table.
And while her baked goods were loved by many - and they were delicious! - there wasn't anything special about them. The chocolate chips were made with a Betty Crocker recipe. The fudge was a recipe from the back of the Kraft Marshmallow Creme jar. She tweaked them over the years, but they were not original.
And yet, I think everyone that walked through those funeral home doors mentioned the same thing: her chocolate chip cookies. In fact, in the flower arrangement my cousin and his wife sent, they included a chocolate chip cookie pillow. It was perfect!
For decades, Mum baked those cookies. For bake sales, card parties, rummage sales, fish frys, festivals, and family gatherings. After Dad died, she baked even more, taking packages of cookies to hair dressers, doctor's offices, and funeral homes. She shipped them to priests who had been assigned in distant parishes and family members far away. She baked them for any reason and for no reason at all.
Stocked by my brother's trips to a wholesale club, she baked multiple times a week. Her freezers were filled with both small and large bags of chocolate chip cookies. You couldn't leave her house without her reaching into the freezer and producing a bag or bags for your to eat on the spot or take with you as you left.
Oh, you might protest that you were watching your weight, but in the end, you left with cookies.
Not to diminish my mom's skill or how yummy her cookies were, but I don't think it was about the cookies.
Baking was her hobby. It filled many empty hours when she lived alone. And, yes, she took pride in her homemade, delicious cookies.
But there was more.
At the funeral home, a man I'd never met before told me something I'll never forget. Because she lived atop my brother's business, Mum often saw customers coming and going. She would wave this man upstairs to come get a bag of cookies. He said that my mom and her cookies made him think he was somebody.
A simple bag of homemade cookies.
Yet, her attention and generosity made this man feel worthy. And Mum did this thousands of times over, delivering cookies (or enlisting another for the delivery) to help raise money for her church, to celebrate a special occasion, or to comfort the grieving. Or because you did a small service for her. Or merely crossed her path.
So simple. So small. And, yet, it was everything.
Another person at the funeral home told me that when Mum learned she liked her lime pear Jell-O salad, she'd set aside a slice to make sure she got some.
Mum's talent was a small one. She baked a few specialties.
But she baked them and gave them in charity. In love.
If I can take only one lesson from my mother's long, beautiful life, it is this:
Don't fall into the trap of thinking you must do something big, or be someone important to make a difference. You can live your life in obscurity being "only" a mother or a housewife or whatever role it is you are called to. You don't need money, fame, or education to do what matters most.
"So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love."
- 1Corinthians 13:13
Carolyn Astfalk is a wife, mother, and author of contemporary Catholic romances, including the award-winning All in Good Time and Ornamental Graces. She formerly worked as a communications director and now works just to keep her head above water. Find her books on Amazon and her other words scattered around the blogosphere and social media.
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