Daughters

A short time ago I decided that I would like to try my hand at making some homemade bread.. in other words, bread without using a bread machine, a new task for me. I enlisted the help of my daughter, Kayla, and we went to work that rainy Sunday making homemade buttermilk biscuits and challah bread. As we mixed and kneaded the bread I was reminded of the words of a dear friend who says while she makes bread she sends wishes, prayers and blessings into it so that while it bakes and the sweet aroma fills through the air she can envision those blessings going up into the heavens. As well, when the bread is eaten those prayers become a part of those who have partaken of it. (Now, granted, she said this much more eloquently than I ever could..)

So, as Kayla and I kneaded I told her of this and we whispered our secret blessings into our dough, braiding the ropes of sweet dough into intricate lacings that soon would become hot loaves of bread... this simple afternoon caused me to reflect on myself as a mother of daughters and what I am passing onto them.

What will my daughters remember of me when they have daughters of their own? I recall my mother having tea parties with me.. pretending that we were both grown women and friends having coversation over tea and cookies.. I remember learning how to make apple pie, the first homemade dessert I could ever claim.. then years later being entrusted with my grandmother's secret recipe that is sacred in our family. I reflect on early Saturday mornings, crawling into bed with my mother and basking in the warmth and security of her bed, wishing I never had to leave.. the smell of lavendar and sweet smell of her face powder that always lingered in the bathroom.

I hope that I am and can be the mother who imparts wisdom onto her daughters.. daughters that grow up with the sacred knowledge of their own bodies, something that only I can guide them to but they must ultimately discover... I hope that I leave them with warm memories of feeling loved, safe and secure and beautiful... memories of how I braided their hair, made their favorite cookies and kissed their soft, warm cheeks.. I wish to be the mother whose daughters one day reflect back on with the hope they can pass on similar things to their own children..

These things I wish for, I may never know.. I may never know their true feelings, just as for some reason I have never shared with my own mother.. like secrets we wish into bread, untold but becoming a warm part of us.