Healing With Cookies

Have you made cookies with your elders recently?

My Aunt Polly passed away almost a year ago. On this day about a year prior to her death, she was sad and blue. She could not be comforted. She was in great pain. I was going to make the cookies for her to enjoy and to share with friends, as had been her habit when she had been able to stand for long periods of time and bake. I invited her to join me. "No, I can't, honey." I tried again, coaxing her with, "but I need you to show me how you like them."

I was making Greek nut and honey stuffed Melomacarona. I asked her again. She grumbled but agreed, and her caregiver helped her from the recliner to a chair at the kitchen table. It wasn't long at all before she began making jokes, teasing me and laughing. It was a very good day, and I remember how satisfying it was to know that shaping a few cookies had brightened her spirits and put some sunshine into her dark day. Cookies can heal. Spending time with someone, especially our elders, and engaging with them is definitely a healing activity. Look at that happy face!

My friend Phyllis Nolan's husband, George, was a master of cookie-baking and delivery. Anyone can bake cookies, but it was in the delivery part of George's process where the healing began. Not that his chocolate chip cookies weren't great--they most definitely were--but he cared about people at home from the hospital, friends who were grieving the loss of a loved one, someone who just needed a lift. He cared enough to bake the cookies and deliver them, stay for a visit, ask genuinely how they were doing and put a little smiley face on top of each plate of cookies that he delivered. If a five-minute drive and a fifteen-minute visit to deliver a plate of cookies can heal, then why aren't we doing more of this? The day we do something kind is the day that fills our heart with sparkly bits of goodness.