Dear Reader:
The sense of smell…isn’t it a wonderful gift from God? And when it comes to memories and feelings of love this special sense plays such a big role in producing long-lasting memories of the comforts of home.
I remember returning home on weekends from college…and being greeted with the smell of love…mother would have cooked a pot roast or a baked chicken with all the fixings ….and it just made you feel so special.
In a little story I read a few weeks ago (true story) a (rather large) family had to make a difficult choice to move to a new place and a smaller home. The older children would have to share rooms and the overall house was not anywhere close to being as nice as the home, they all loved, left behind.
The transition period, going from the familiar to the unknown, wasn’t going well, especially for the children. They wanted their old friends and schools back.
On the first day of school…after fixing breakfast and getting all the children off to school…the mother sat down and held her aching head. She had worn a forced smile on her face for the children for so long…her head actually hurt. She sighed…” Life is tough.”
She knew everyone would eventually adjust…but she wished she could think of something that would help that transition along…without adding any expense to a very tight budget.
Suddenly she had an idea…she would make the kids chocolate chip cookies…their favorite. Then when they all arrived back home…the house would have a familiar smell to it.
Her energy renewed…she got out all the ingredients and started to mix it all together…when her fairly new stand mixer suddenly stopped and a burnt smell filled the kitchen. She quickly unplugged the appliance…the cord was severed.
Her spirits immediately dropped…”Come on God…Give me a break…I am just trying my hardest to help my children.”
She had no money to buy any kind of mixer…the one she was using had been a gift from all the children and her siblings one Christmas. Now what?
Immediately a thought popped into her head. What did your mother use? She laughed to herself…an old white hand-mixer that brought more happiness than any other appliance…her mother was a great cook.
Wait a minute. Didn’t she keep that old hand-mixer when her mother passed away last year…could it possibly be? She ran into the attic and finally found the box with her mother’s name on it.
At the very bottom was the old hand-mixer. It looked pretty bad…in fact when she first turned it on…there was only silence…and acute disappointment. Surely God didn’t plant that idea for this to happen.
Then she remembered her mother jiggling the cord sometimes when it would stop working….nothing to lose. She jiggled and the old white hand-mixer came to life…she squealed with excitement.
When the children arrived home that afternoon to the smell of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies…the smiles on their faces said it all. “It smells just like home” the youngest cried out with joy in his eyes.
And then the children ate cookies, drank milk, and shared all the excitement about the new friends they had met with their mother. Everything was going to be just fine. God and grandmother would see to that…with a “wink.”
…………………………
As you can tell from the title photo… the only mixer I have, also, is my mother’s little white hand-mixer. She made every cake and cookie I ate from that mixer….even Ben’s most memorable chocolate cake… that made it him on his birthday in the jungles of Vietnam.
It was mother who first told me about the easy, delicious cake called the “Famous Chocolate Wafer” cake…or as we came to call it…just the refrigerator cake. Since I was in charge of the sweets for the beach…I decided to make it once again….using Lucille’s little white hand-mixer. Thanks Mom!
So until tomorrow…Let us pause and remember our favorite smells and the location of them…this sense probably has the most direct link back to our childhoods.
“Today is my favorite day” Winnie the Pooh
* Tomorrow Ben (Friday the 22) goes for his very last medical session to determine if the 80% pension (he miraculously received last summer…remember Ireland and the sign-“Stop and Pray”) will be bumped to a 100% …the family would appreciate it if you could find time to “stop and pray” that Ben finally finds closure to a six year fight on the homefront…VA. Thank you!
* I don’t think that it is a coincidence that Memorial Day falls on Monday May 25…perhaps a God’s Wink?
ichaseferalcats
John Turner
Legally Ohm
Becky Dingle
Ben certainly has my prayers! It’s a shame you have to fight with the Government to get what you should get from them. It especially infuriates me when I see our Government officials waste money or grant themselves raises and people like Ben have to fight and have prayers said for him to get what he deserves.
And ahhh, the smells of home! I can still remembe try what my parents home smelled like! Even after I was married and owned my own home, when I ws liked in the door of my parents home I knew I was home and that it would alwsys be my home for as long as they were living! Yes sense if smell triggers so many things from memories of home to good times to favorite things. And I can still smell my parents home, my home though my parents have been with the Lord for years!
God is good…