alwaysabeautifullife:

One of the most wonderful experiences is watching my children become teens seeing how my effort, often tired and drained, remains in their memories as absolutely precious parts of their lives.

The other day a parishioner brought us snacks and a meal to ease the burden of my husband who is currently the sole financial provider and sole homemaker as I’m still healing. One of the snacks was some wonderful baked giant muffins in several flavors from double chocolate, various berries, to poppyseed muffin. I walked to the kitchen one morning and excitedly presented them with the choice of muffins for breakfast. All of them strangely chose poppy seed, the least sweetest. The next day they all wanted the poppy seed muffins but only two remained, so we all broke them to share with one another. I asked them why they liked the poppyseed ones the best. They replied with memories of eating them often when they were very young, and how they were always a favorite.

I listened to them explain and remembered that time of their lives very clearly. At the time my husband and I had three children, our sons, and we lived in a one bedroom apartment with a tv on the floor, a hand me down couch, a blow up mattress in the living room we slept on, and playpens and sleeping bags my children slept on. They were all under the age of 4, and our finances were extremely tight. We shopped carefully and many luxuries like candy or popsicles couldn’t at the time fit in our budget. There was one box of poppyseed muffins however, they were inexpensive and requires little to no ingredients besides water and oil. I cooked them in the afternoons when they napped, although I was exhausted and wanted to put my feet up. The next morning we would eat them for breakfast or have them after dinner for treats.

It reminded me of my own memories when my mother head fled from her abusive husband, and we lived in a tiny house, relying on state aid for things like food. She used to tell us when our milk ran out that she had a very special and delicious milk that we made with her and excitedly poured into our cereal. We looked forward to being out of regular gallon milk. To this day I on occasion buy dried evaporated milk to drink because it reminded me of times that to us were sweet and rich, when our luxury was only love.