Baking Through Grief

“Excuse me Miss, please place your laptop in the seat front pocket and set your chair upright for landing.” The flight attendant with the too tight bun that looks like it causes a headache within seconds is doing the weird force smile thing flight attendants do when they’ve already asked you to follow the procedures.

I mumbled inaudibly and slowly closed the laptop and sat up. My eyes were dried out and bloodshot from staring at Excel spreadsheets for the 6 hour flight home to California. The numbers had started to merge together and I’m not sure how many sheets I had made at that point. Probably too many. It had to be perfect. There was a sheet for orders that connected to the Google form, sheets for recipes, master grocery list, time schedules.

It wasn’t enough for me to just participate in the 5K walk on Thanksgiving this year, I needed to do more for Katie. So, two weeks prior I called Jen, Katie’s mom, to run the idea by her. After we hung up, I quickly Googled “How to set up online payments” and I was off. I posted on my Instagram and within minutes, orders for home baked pies I promised to bake and donate 100% of the proceeds to Katie’s organization for student leadership and brain cancer research were rolling in.

The plane hit the tarmac, but I kept my eyes closed until I heard my plane neighbor stand up. As I began walking down the aisle I mentally started my task list to have all 58 pies ready to be distributed within 72 hours.

I knew the call was coming. For twelve months then I knew the call was coming. I woke up every day and walked a tightrope above broken glass. I went to sleep every night with my ringer on loud just in case. But I didn’t think it would actually come.

I don’t know if I hung up my phone, if I dropped it, or if I just kept it to my ear. I don’t know what was said or what I did. My roommate says I wouldn’t stop screaming, but I don’t recall that. All I remember is blackness. All I remember was silence so loud it muted out every other sound and distorted my roommates voice.

After hours, or possibly days, of laying in the dark, I heard a gentle knock on the door and my roommate leaving a piece of cake on my nightstand. I pushed it away. Food will not stay down anymore.

I printed my master grocery list from Excel and stared at it. Thirty three pounds of granny smith apples. Fifteen pounds of flour. Eight pounds of sugar. Next to each item was the brand name and cost. I had spent days before researching every grocery store in my hometown to figure out which one would be the most cost effective to shop at, leaving the most money for donation.

In the store, I had to use two shopping carts while I walked down the too bright aisles. I filled each cart to its breaking point by slowly scanning every aisle and double, then triple checking my list. Glancing up from her scanning, the grocery clerk joked “Well I want to go wherever you’re going for Thanksgiving!”

I tried my best to give her a chuckle but it came out stunted and deformed. The clerk tilted her head and I cleared my throat and inserted my card to pay.

Opening the door to the tired IHOP was like walking right back into high school. Nothing had changed except there were new bright faced and underpaid workers there. I quickly scanned the restaurant and found where my friends had put two tables together. Each hug we gave each other was a second longer than normal. We all knew without saying it, that this would be the last time we were all together. We made idle chit chat about who was dating who, which of our high school classmates had gotten pregnant, and how our families were doing. I watched the clock tick by waiting for Katie to arrive, her mom texted me saying they were running a few minutes late.

We chose IHOP because it was where we all went as a group after school dances to laugh and gossip about the night. None of us particularly liked the place, but it was open 24/7 and served breakfast all day. Katie always arrived slightly late, as student body president she had to stay back and help clean up after the dance. She didn’t mind, we always had her pancakes hot at the table by the time she sat down.

My phone buzzed from Jen letting me know she just dropped Katie off. I jumped up, hitting my shin on my chair, and went to go meet her at the front door. She was tired of her goodbye tour, but did her best not to let it show. We sat there for hours eating our syrup-soaked pancakes, willing time to go backwards. Trying to pretend we were still sixteen and that our biggest worries were the history exam on Friday and how long it was okay before texting our crush back.

I’m not sure who started it, maybe we all did, but we ended up all holding hands under the table and finally just sitting with our silence.

My hands were beginning to blister from rolling out the pie dough I made the night before. I was trying to balance rolling quickly while making sure the dough didn’t crack apart. I was thankful we had the foresight to make the apple pie filling the night before, my dad volunteering to painstakingly peel and chop every apple. In the corner of the kitchen my dad was now making boxes for the pies and my mom was measuring out ingredients for the pumpkin filling. It took us a bit to get the rhythm of production, but we were soon a well oiled machine.

Once the stress of figuring out the production line was figured out, we took a shot of bourbon that was for the pies and blasted country music to dance to. We were baking to the beat, a cloud of flour hung in the air and we were pausing only when the oven timer went off. Roll the dough, chill the dough, shape the dough, bake, fill, bake again, repeat. Golden apple, pecan, and pumpkin pies were coming out of the oven and into boxes still steaming, and for a brief moment I felt the darkness above me fade away.

I sat in our high school theatre in the first row and watched the theatre fill up to the balcony. The bright red jumpsuit the Nordstroms associate picked out for me itched. People kept coming up to me to hug me and ask how I was holding up. What did they expect me to say? That I was doing great, actually? That I’ve always dreamed of going to my friend’s funeral in our high school theatre? Instead I nodded and said I was taking it one step at a time, whatever that meant. After the memorial it was more of the same. Just lines of people saying she was too young.

I woke up the morning of the 5K after a sleepless night. My dad had already packed up all the pies and handed me a cup of coffee to drink in the car. It was still dark out, and by the time we arrived at the location of the walk, Katie’s family had already set up a table for me in the parking lot. I unpacked all the pies, and watched as everyone from my town arrived for the walk.

Catching Jen’s eyes from across the parking lot, I felt a wave of sadness, gratitude, and love, overwhelm and wash over me. This was another first without Katie. I looked down at the check in my hand that was made out to the KM Legacy Organization, Katie’s heart was poured into the creation of it. For the first time since I stepped off the plane, I felt like I was able to catch my breath. I spent the morning handing out the pies to everyone who ordered, knowing that a small part of me was going to be at their Thanksgiving table.

Towards the final hour, I felt a soft tap on my shoulder. Katie’s Grandma was standing behind me with stifled tears in her eyes, and without saying a word, pulled me into her arms. We stayed like that for a while, just holding each other. Nothing needed to be said, we just needed to be there together.