Snapping Out of It, Albeit Slowly

Art: Mary Engelbreit

If there’s one thing I knew about my friend Sparky, it’s that she didn’t suffer a fool. She was no nonsense…honest, sometimes brutally honest. There were a couple of times she took me to task over something I wrote in my blog. When I was talking about downsizing, I was acting like I’d just discovered a new language and everyone should start speaking it. She reminded me that some people come from an abusive relationship and leave with what they can carry. She was very proud of…and attached to…the things she worked hard for as a single woman and I should acknowledge that. She’s right, of course. I just didn’t have that perspective and I appreciated her telling me her thoughts.

Another time, I was lamenting the loss of something important to me. Perhaps I’d been lamenting a little too loud, and a little too long for her. She called me and told me to snap out of it. She said, “This isn’t like you to whine.” She was right again. She kicked me in the butt when I needed it, but she would fight to the death for you if you were rightfully distressed.

You don’t just “snap out of” grief, of course. She knew that. But I’m picking up the pieces of my broken heart…again…and getting back to the art of every day living. I baked two different kinds of cookies yesterday in between watching football games and a series on the History Channel about the early financial tycoons of this country…Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Morgan, Ford, etc. I knitted dishcloths in between batches of cookies.

Remember how I’ve told you God throws gems down in the flames of our grief? Well, I’ve found a gem in my grieving for Sparky in the form of one of her good friends. He was the person who told us that Sparky died on Monday. He texted me his phone number and I sat on our deck in the unusually warm sunshine of December 13th and cried. We lamented how we would miss her and over the course of the last week, we’ve exchanged several texts…usually sharing the funny kinds of memes that our friend used to share with us and telling funny stories. We met him at the funeral home on Saturday evening. Sparky seems to have brought several of her friends together who didn’t know each other before her passing. This is how we’ll keep her alive…through our collective memories.

Walnut Horns…recipe shared by Richard Lowe

Our new friend shared a recipe on his Facebook page this weekend and, since I was baking, I decided to try it. It’s for Walnut Horns. I’ve also heard of them called Walnut Crescents. They’re a different kind of cookie in that they have a yeasty dough…kinda of like a brioche, but not cooked. They’re quite good so I asked him if I could share the recipe with you here and he said yes.