Last week, Dale asked me to bake him some cookies for his illustrious “Tea Time with Dale” event. I said, “Sure” which in Mugs vernacular means, “I’ll do it cuz I should, but I’d really prefer not to.”
Recognizing my “I don’t want to be helpful tone,” Abby piped up, “I’ll make the cookies, Daddy, after I get home from teaching piano lessons.”
(My daughter is a teacher’s pet and her daddy’s pet and sometimes her sweetness causes me to roll my eyes and causes her brothers to gripe and complain.)
“I’ll do it. I’ll do it,” I declared trying to stay committed to my “God first, Dale second, Kids third” priority list.
When the cookie baking day arrived, I took the butter out of the refrigerator to let it soften so I could bake the cookies during the cool of the morning. By nighttime, the butter was plenty soft and the cookies were not baked.
As with most days this summer, my priority list had transformed into “God first, Garden second, Garden third, Garden fourth, etc.”
I came in soaked through with sweat, and asked my daughter, “Can you please make the cookies for your father? I’m exhausted and need take a shower.”
She gave me an “I told you so” look and then promptly got to work.
In order to have enough cookies for both “Tea Time with Dale” and her brothers, she had to make a double batch. Wanting to shorten the length of time a 350 degree oven was blasting heat on a hot July night, I told her to make two pans at once. As I walked to the shower, I thought, “Check to make sure the racks are in the correct place,” followed quickly by “Naw, it will be fine.”
She baked one pan and the cookies came out perfect. Then, unfortunately, she listened to me and tried to bake two pans at once. Both pans of cookies were burnt. (She thought it was because she had lost track of the baking time.)
She tried again to bake two pans at once, and burnt both pans of cookies again. Finally, I told her to check the racks. (The racks were on the lowest two slots.)
She baked the remaining pans individually, and they all came out perfect. There were just enough unburnt cookies for “Tea Time with Dale.”
Her brothers were stuck with 48 burnt chocolate chip cookies. Frustrated and disappointed, Abby left the burnt cookies on the cooling rack and went to bed.
I was exhausted, so I went to bed also.
The next morning, I came downstairs, looked at the burnt cookies, and thought of my mom.
(“Just scrape off the burnt,” she would say. “No, they’re ruined!” I would argue in my mad angry state, frustrated that I had taken so much time to bake and now, it was all spoiled. Indignantly, I would throw them in the trash, and Mom would shake her head.)
Knowing Abby felt bad and Gabe, like my dad, was always willing to eat burnt cookies, I sat down and began to scrape off the burnt.
I think Mom’s life motto could be “Just scrape off the burnt.” She always finds the positive bit, the encouraging word, the thing to make what’s bad better.
After Josiah came home from college and was readjusting to sleeping at night and staying awake during the day, he would periodically wake up just prior to dinner. One day, he woke up to eat cereal at 1630. I had left the house early that morning and had just returned. I was staring at Josiah in exasperation when Mom called. “Just called to see what everyone is doing,” she said.
“Well. Josiah is eating cereal at 4:30 in the afternoon, because he just woke up,” I told her.
“He should work the 11 – 7 shift,” she said. “He’d be good at that. Not a lot of people can work that shift.”
When I told this story to my sister Marie, she laughed. “I don’t know how she does it, but Mom can always find something encouraging to say no matter the situation.”
(It should be noted that Josiah’s daytime wakefulness has greatly improved as the summer has gone along.)
Today, Mom moves for the fourth time since she and Dad left Blue Lake. Her and Dad’s living environment has changed yearly because of the long term impact from Dad’s stroke.
This year, I’m not there to help her move. God must have wanted to give Mom a more peaceful move since I failed character camp twice in a row.
The last four years have been very difficult for her and Dad, and for the rest of the Meloch Family as well.
I can’t be there to help her move today. The best I can do is send some encouraging words.
“Just scrape off the burnt, Mom. Just scrape off the burnt.”