Eating Memories

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Have you ever eaten a memory?

I just did.

I lifted the gluten free ginger cookie to my lips and never expected to find myself childlike and young in my Grandma’s kitchen again. With one taste, I could see it all. My grandma standing there in her kitchen and on the counter top to the left, jars lined up where cookies waited for me and my brother and cousins. Sugar cookies, peanut butter cookies and ginger cookies, oh my!

Her floured apron, her wrinkled fingers reaching for our cheeks to give us big smooches, and her cookies, let us know we were home and that we were welcome. Grandma would laugh as we ran to the jars and stood on our tip toes reaching our arms down and into the jars to grab pure deliciousness.

“One at a time.” Her eyes would twinkle with that knowing smile that said she was fully aware we had already planned on going one by one through the jars as many times as our tummies would let us. No one made cookies like Grandma.

I continued to chew my first bite, slowly, closing my eyes and enjoying the long lost taste of my Grandma’s cookies. I never expected all that from a gluten free ginger cookie from a local bakery. I secretly was glad we bought a bag of cookies and not just one. I knew that the second cookie would allow Grandma to stay with me a little longer.

I miss my Grandma.  Eating this cookie right now makes me feel close to her. I would stand on a chair next to her counter and roll the dough into little balls between my palms, mimicking her movements. Then we’d drop them in the little dish and roll them in sugar making them sparkle. The cracks on the cookie made me remember how we would push the cookie dough balls down, just right, with the bottom of a glass. She’d put them in her oven and then we would sit at her kitchen table waiting, a cold glass of milk on standby.

All of those years of memories came from one cookie. I'm so thankful.

What memory have you eaten lately?