The time really does go by so quickly. It seems like a couple years ago that my youngest daughter Corey (now 22 years old) was just a baby. When she was little, my dear Mom would drop by our little house on Arizona Street in Portsmouth, just long enough to hug me and hug the baby and drop off a little gift. Sometimes it was a potted mum or sometimes it was a box of Little Debbie’s or sometimes it was a $20 bill to buy ourselves a little treat.

She’d look at my babies and say, “I know this is hard to believe, but this chapter of your life will be over before you know it. In no time at all, they’re grown and gone and what remains are the memories. I know this feels like an intense time of life, but enjoy it. Relish the moments because you’ll have the rest of your life to reflect on and remember these happy days.”

My mother was very wise.

On Thanksgiving Day, my husband and I sat quietly with each other in our spacious dining room and enjoyed our freshly-cooked turkey and home-made stuffing and yams and pumpkin pie. I’m sure we were both thinking about our children. I’ve had a couple Thanksgivings utterly alone and I can tell you, it’s 5000% better to have someone with whom to share a holiday and yet, your thoughts return to those days when there were little kids running around the house making their happy noises.

Corey - about seven months old in this photo

Found this recipe in a 1903 Ladies’ Home Journal and it sounds delightfully simple.

Years ago, my mother told me stories about her mom, and what a wonderful cook she was. Mom said that Flossie could open up the old behemoth of a cast-iron stove, stick her hand into the large oven and gage the approximate temperature. This recipe (below) is a throw-back to those days, when you had to guess the temperature of your oven and stove top.

An interesting aside, these old cast-iron stoves - typically fueld by wood or coal - were about 2% efficient. In other words, about 98% of the heat went in places you did not want it to go (such as the room). There were stories in these old Ladies’ Home Journals about women passing out from the extreme heat in the kitchen. Lack of oxygen was also a problem and caused many women to faint.

That’s why older homes (such as my 1924 Colonial Revival) have kitchens that are set back from the rest of the house, within an “L” toward the back of the home. Doing so enables a kitchen to have ventilation on three sides. My kitchen has five windows - three over the sink, two on a side wall and then the third wall had a large screened-in door. Less chance of fainting that way!

The number one rule: Keep the cook (aka wife) alive and well!

Here’s the recipe. Happy heating and cooking and eating!

An original recipe from a 1903 Ladies' Home Journal

Dissolve 1 lb sugar in 1/4 cup water. boil until it forms a ball when dropped in cold water.

Stand a minute. Rub portions against side of pan, quickly stir in bulk until milky.

Mix in quickly pint Dunhams’ Cocoanut.

Make into bars and stand.

When my 26-year-old daughter called to tell me that she’d made the decision to donate one of her kidneys to her best friend, Kaycee, I was not a happy woman. In fact, I was against it - wholeheartedly, or in this case,  whole-kidneyedly.

A few days later, I talked with her father and he made a valid point.

“Rose,” he told me, “the odds of those two girls being a match are one in a million. Don’t worry about this. Chances are good that once she’s tested, it’ll all end right there.”

Several weeks later, there was another phone call from Crystal.

“Mom, please understand,” she pleaded. “There’s a good chance Kaycee will die if she doesn’t get a kidney within the next year or two. She’s 24 years old and has already been on dialysis for 18 months. This is something I have to do. Tell me that you’ll support me in this.”

And then I sighed a motherly sigh and promised her that I’d try to grow into a supportive parent.

A few weeks passed when the next phone call came. “Mom, we’re a match. The doctors are stunned. They say that we’re as good a match as if we were siblings. I told Kaycee that there’s a reason that we always felt like sisters. I knew we’d be a perfect match. I just knew it.”

The surgery was scheduled for April 23, 2007. I told Crystal that I’d fly to Peoria, Illinois for the surgery. I was still not happy about this but I knew I had to do the right thing for my little girl.  My sweet little girl.

Less than five weeks earlier, I’d remarried and now I asked my new husband to fly with me. I couldn’t imagine doing this alone.

Continued at Kidney-shaped Hearts, Part II

Crystal (on the far left) with her sister Anna, Grandma Betty and cousin Laurel (1985)