The Annual Baking of the Fruitcakes

My Nana

I’ve been making fruitcakes for friends and family for Christmas for 35 years now. It is a huge undertaking but some of my friends would be lost without their fruitcake. My fruitcake is not the door-stopper, joke inducing kind of fruitcake. People who don’t like fruitcake love mine.

My Nana made fruitcakes almost all of her life and as she got up in years, I begged for her recipe. The problem was that she was of the old school—a pinch of this, a handful of that—and she never made them on the large scale that I do. I looked through cookbooks and tried several different recipes. I couldn’t believe how many there were! But they never tasted any where near as delicious as hers

At last I was able to persuade her to do some measuring as she made her delicious fruitcakes and I still have her handwritten recipe. The first difference I noticed was hers included a bit of molasses. The other was an abundance of brown paper. She cut up brown paper grocery bags to line each pan she used and she covered all the pans with a large sheet of brown paper. She also cooked them slowly, steaming them with a pan of water under the cakes. And even this conservative Southern Baptist small-town woman, marinated her fruit and nuts in brandy prior to baking and then wrapped each cake in cheese cloth soaked in brandy.

To my great delight, she lived to taste my first attempt and declare it as good as hers. I knew I had accomplished the great fruitcake victory!

Each year, the kids and grandkids come over for the baking of the fruitcakes. It is such fun. Here are some pictures from this year. And yes, I supervise a thorough hand-washing ceremony before anyone touches anything.

In loving memory of J.T. Rutherford, my Daddy.
Born May 30, 1921; Died Nov. 6. 2006

Always a Daddy's girl. Odessa, TX 1951

What I learned in the last year (written 11/5/2007)

I learned that like so many other experiences in life, no one can describe the excruciating pain of death. It encompasses your whole being—mind, body and soul. It can suffocate you at times. It reduces you to feeling very child-like, just wanting to be held and comforted. And, when it’s your parents, you feel like your whole foundation has eroded from underneath you.

I learned that when I lost one parent, Mother, and immediately started taking care of the remaining parent, Daddy, I went into remote control. Feelings were put on the shelf for later. I had a multitude of tasks daily and never enough time to take care of all of them. Plus, I had promised Mother I would take care of Daddy and that, to me, meant taking care of not just his body, but his heart. So, grieving for Mother would just have to wait.

I learned that grief is very personal. No one can go through it for you or tell you how to get through it faster. I wanted someone to give me a road map so that I could stop my pain; begin to function again. It was only when I surrendered everything that I began to see a glimpse of light; that I could begin to breathe. I gave up any sense of a time table; I gave up any “process;” I gave up trying to control my emotions, or worse faking my emotions; I gave up an agenda (the house, the yard, the dirty clothes, etc.).

I learned that my children were a continued legacy of my parents. They had grown up a block from their beloved grandparents. So when one generation passed away, my children stepped up, far more than I thought they would, and honored their grandparents in their actions, decisions and taking care of me. And they remember things I don’t and vice versa so we pool our memories into a collage of beauty and tenderness.

I never gave up on my faith, on the One who had seen me through so many other tragedies in my life. At mid-year, I flew to CA to be with my closest friends—a place where I could be nurtured, loved, listened to, and accepted for who I was and where I was. My friend and I had grown up in each other’s homes so she too grieved for my parents. I found that my favorite author, Henri Nouwen, had written a book, “Turn Your Mourning into Dancing.” I bought it and read it on that sunny southern CA patio, journaling, praying, and just being. Throughout that time, I talked my heart out, almost literally, to my friends. After lots of hugs, tears, and introspection, the fog began to clear; the pain grew a bit less intense. We prayed together and grew closer in our common grief.

And then I realized that grief is more than loss of a loved one, its loss of an identity. I was a daughter—for all practical purposes, an only child. I was a caregiver, best friend, prayer partner. I was co-dependent on these two people who had raised me. I was part of a triangle—a wonderful, supportive, intuitively thoughtful three-some. And on Nov. 6, 2006, I became one and for a long time I struggled with who I was, who I had been and who I wanted to be. I think that’s a huge dimension which is ignored by the grieving.

And, so as I approach the first anniversary of Daddy’s death, I am filled with sadness of what I used to have, who I used to be. I long to be called “my gal” by Daddy or “sweet girl” by my Mother. I long to have those enveloping, long hugs that said I love you no matter what.

And yet, I now know, I am becoming a new me. I’ve taken some of the old me, added what I’ve learned as a caregiver, and am re-directing my life into a new me. I’ll be ready for all of that on Nov. 7, 2007. Today, I’m just Daddy’s little girl, wishing for one more tender touch.