Chocolate prune cake

Alisha's turning 1 on Sunday. I had it in my mind that I would summon the presence of my mother by baking a chocolate prune cake. It's the one recipe I have in my possession that is written in her handwriting probably from when I was not much older than 1, and probably not tasted since I was in my single digits. It was a perplexing cake - rich, moist, chocolatey, yet also high in fiber.

However, my oven is broken. So I'll probably end up at Whole Foods picking out an expensive pre-made cake, with no dried plums, no trip back in time to 1979 when my mother was roughly my age.

When someone is clearly dying - their body visibly declining in a more or less natural manner after a life of children, grandchildren and years battling a deadly disease - you begin to want to know how the process ends. No, of course I don't mean want them to be gone, but the person they've become bears so little resemblance to the one you remember that you have to remind yourself of the person they used to be. Where the process of watching them die becomes stressful and the anticipation of the final event eats at you, wondering what you'll be able to say or do to comfort them, what questions you need to ask while they can still answer them. What will it feel like when they're gone for real?

And then it happens. Followed by awkward emptiness. Where's the person who used to nag me because I never called? Where are the magazine clippings that used to arrive in the mail that I often forgot to read?

Was the last conversation I had with her really one in which I started complaining about Josh's garage project because I had run out of other things to say? And did I really go to Storyland the last afternoon she was alive? How is this possible?

My stepfather, Terry, called me, I'm not sure when, but shared that he thought she was slipping away. I asked if I should head down there. I had always hoped I could be there with her in the end, to help her pass in peace, I guess. Then Terry said she went to the cafeteria for lunch. This confused me. A woman on her deathbed doesn't go to the cafeteria for lunch. Right? Nonetheless I didn't want to take chances - I needed at least to speak to her.

She didn't have the energy to talk and the cell phone connection sucked. I was in North Conway, NH. Terry's phone didn't work so well either and the regular phone in her room didn't have a speaker option. But when he called, I walked outside the Muddy Moose restaurant to try and say something nice. I suspected this might be the last time I talked to her. I think I told her we were in North Conway, hoping it would trigger happy memories of trips we took together - this was my favorite place on earth when I was 7, after all - and that I loved her. I have no idea if she heard me.

Then I went inside, finished my crappy taco salad, collected my children and spent the afternoon standing in lines at Storyland. Fucking Storyland. My sister, Sarah, and her family, however, were at that moment on their way to see her, which eased my mind slightly.

Looking back I have trouble connecting these dots on my personal timeline with that call, and the one I got at 9 am the following morning after a hotel breakfast. I was on my way back to the room for diapers and felt instantly trapped by the ridiculous decision to head north for this weekend. It was the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. Zach was expecting to spend the day back and Storyland, not driving for 15 hours south.

After my last visit with her, just 2 weeks earlier, I came home perplexed. I had to dig out old albums to remind myself what she used to look like. She had changed so much physically in her last months that she was hard to recognize.

That was the process. I know now how it ends. Going back for a re-do is not an option, though of course there are things I wish I had done differently. Of course I carry her with me. Among other things, I carry the 38-year-old woman who baked chocolate prune cake, though I'm sure folks thought it was weird - even in the 70s. And of course, I miss being nagged for not calling.

And yes, we'll make that cake one of these days, even if the oven is broken this weekend.