Fun with Alzheimer's

Fun? Nope...still not. Funny? Yes...but sometimes not even that.

By the time I realized Mom’s recipes, lovingly prepared for us for decades, should be written down because her memory was slowly fading…it was too late. For years, at Christmas, my Mom had made each family member’s favorite cookies or candy just for them. A few of the recipes I had called and asked for over the years. But, the sorghum cookie recipe was not one of those.

My niece, Becky, adored Grandma’s sorghum cookies. They were the taste highlight of her holiday. But the recipe was memorized by Mom many years before and either never written down or lost if it was. Becky lamented, “I can’t believe I’ll never taste those cookies again” as tears rolled down her cheeks. She grieved the cookies and her dimming Grandmother, I think.

I then made it my purpose to recreate them. At work, I asked everyone to search their cookbooks for molasses or sorghum cookie recipes. I got dozens. I read each recipe and finally chose the two that I thought showed the most promise, based on my own recollection of what went into them. It had to have ginger as an ingredient…and only a little cinnamon.

Two weeks before Christmas, I baked them. I rolled them into BIG walnut-sized balls because one of the things about the cookies was that they were as big as your head! I baked them. I cooled them. I tasted them. “Close but no cigar,” I thought. When Becky arrived, I told her the story of my quest. She tasted them, smiled and thanked me for being so thoughtful. The look on her face told me they were not the same.

The next year, I altered a few things. I rolled them EVEN BIGGER to try to replicate the soft center and outer chewiness. I serve them to Becky again. “These are good,” she said. “But not Grandma’s, right?” I asked. “No,” she said, “not Grandma’s.”

My mom died in January, 2000. She was a saint and had gone to officially be one with God, whom she had walked with every day of her life.

I remember it must have been late July or early August. It was hot and it was early in the morning when the sun is just starting to turn everything gray before dawn. I was asleep…dozing actually. Suddenly, there was a very loud crash, as though something had fallen off the wall. I sat bolt upright in bed, and in a clear and loud voice, my Mother said to me, “It’s margarine, Honey, not butter!”

I sat there stunned. I got up and walked the entire house, looking for what had fallen. Nothing was out of place. When I crawled, puzzled, back into bed, Michael aroused. “Are you okay?” he asked. I said, “Yes, but did you just hear my Mom say, ‘It’s margarine, honey, not butter?’” He fully opened his eyes and shook his head. “You must have been dreaming,” he said. “I guess I was,” I replied, knowing full well that wasn’t the case.

“What does that mean?” I thought. “Margarine…not butter.” You see, it was late July or early August and I wasn’t thinking about Christmas cookies.

In December, I dutifully got out all the recipes that I fix for my family every year. I pulled out the sorghum cookie recipe and sighed. Should I try again this year, for Becky? As I gazed at the recipe, my eyes fell on the first ingredient: butter. My mother NEVER baked with butter! She ALWAYS baked with Parkay margarine! I understood!

I went to the store. I bought Parkay margarine. I let it soften on the counter until it was limp. I put the Parkay into the KitchenAid mixer along with the sorghum. Unlike butter, the margarine and sorghum didn’t combine. They formed into little brown beads. I added the dry ingredients. I rolled them out into balls as big as your head. I baked them, cooled them and picked one up.

I knew.

When Becky arrived, I offered her a cookie. She smiled at me and dutifully took a bite. Her eyes filled with tears and she stuffed the whole thing into her mouth, chewing with her eyes closed as tears ran down.

“Oh,” she finally said. “I never thought I’d taste that again…they’re Grandma’s cookies!”

Take comfort: she never leaves you and she is there…in the gray colors of the morning, if you take time to listen.

Thanks, Mom!

Kim Woodward is owner of Senior Helpers of Avon, an in-home care and companionship company. Contact her at kwoodward@seniorhelpers.com or (317) 718-1806.