Cake, and more cake

Last night, my daughter and I baked a cake. A lemon pound cake, to be specific. I always wondered why a pound cake was called a pound cake. Come to find out, the name came from the POUND OF BUTTER that you put in your pound cake. We whipped the butter until it was light and fluffy, creamed in the sugar, added the eggs, mixed the dry ingredients, and gradually incorporated everything together, including the fresh lemon juice. The cake came out perfect from the bundt pan, and was fluffy and delicious (I made a smaller version with the leftover batter just to be sure).

Then, we packed it up, and I brought it to work this morning for Sam and his family. Sam's father-in-law died last weekend from lung cancer that had infiltrated his entire body: his bones, his lymph glands, and his brain.

While we were at the store shopping for ingredients, my daughter, who is 14 and already the possessor of all the wisdom in the world, kept querying me about why was so important to bake that cake. "Mom, it's not like they NEED a cake," she kept saying, "Couldn't you do something else?" The clerk, after listening to this question about 15 times in as many minutes, finally responded: "No, taking in food is the best thing you can do when someone passes on."

In my small town, the only proper response to a death or serious illness in a family was to take in food. I grew up watching my mom fix meal after meal for families in our neighborhood that were suffering some kind of loss. In that situation, a cake isn't just a cake, it is a sign of love, affection, and caring. It's a piece of your heart on a plate. That cake says, "I'm thinking about you and your family, and I want you to know that we all care about your suffering." When I went through a miscarriage in 1992, people brought in food. When I was on enforced bedrest during my pregnancy with my son, again, people brought in meals for my family for weeks. Those meals brought with them such a feeling of solidarity. I remember each and every person who provided for me and my family during those times. Those were the people you knew you could count on through thick or thin. And, who similarly, could count on me.

I know that taking in food isn't done much anymore in our modern world. It seems like I am probably the last one in my neighborhood who still does it. And, there are very few people in my office that I'd bake a cake for. But, Sam is one of them, because he is part of my self-created community. And, this cake-baking is one tradition that I think should be kept alive. We need people in our lives, people who will bake us a cake or fix us a meal when we're in the rough parts of life. We need people who will mow our lawns or help us jump start our car in the morning before work. We need to live in neighborhoods where we know each other's names and where we can recognize each other's children.

And, if we want those things to happen, sometimes, we have to be the ones to start the chain of kindness.

It's hard to put that feeling into terms that a modern-day girl can understand, but I have a feeling that in another ten years, she'll be the girl baking cakes. I hope that by watching me, that tradition will be transmitted on to her, just like watching my mom bake the same cakes 30 years ago stuck with me.