My Story with Bread

Mom and meWhile tending my mother through her slow but steady decline with dementia, kneading saved my life.

Anyone who has cared for an aging parent knows the eroding sense of self-competence I felt coming face-to-face with an inability to do it all. 

With so many things left midstream in order to move onto the next more important thing, making bread became a life raft. I could see a loaf through from start to finish and reclaim, if only temporarily, a sense of having accomplished at least something.

 

Mom and Grandma

Mom and Grandma

The passion for bread had been instilled in me nearly from birth by the two matriarchs in my life: my mother and my grandmother.

While I lacked the technical knowledge that a master baker earns through time and training, I kneaded with determination to hold on to what I could from my past as my mother slipped further from reach.

Kneading became an intimate process as I found myself contemplating not only the ingredients of bread, but the ingredients of life.  Each time I loaded dough into the oven and watched it transform into bread, it gave me hope. Maybe feeling the heat of my own life might not be such a bad thing.  Maybe, just maybe, it was taking me to the edge of something new.

As it turns out, Kneading Life is that something new.

Read Mary’s Official Bio

 

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2 thoughts on “My Story with Bread

  1. Pingback: A Tale of Two Aprons | Kneading Life

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