A New Beginning: My Journey with Addy

Baking sounds safe enough. I’ve helped make cookies plenty of times at home, so this is one thing I won’t mess up. Addy and I head for the church kitchen, where Mrs. Walker is already stirring a pot of sweet-potato pudding. Addy tells her momma the church is sure to raise a lot of money, since Poppa always said her pudding tastes like a little bit of heaven, and Mrs. Walker blushes and shoos us along.

The kitchen is crowded but festive, full of people talking and laughing as they work, and it reminds me of my own kitchen at home when everyone pitches in to make dinner. At one table a woman mixes batter by hand in a huge bowl, while at the other end two women frost cakes beside loaves of bread cooling next to golden doughnuts. A few girls roll out piecrust nearby, and two women pop popcorn over the stove in big iron pots before shaping it into balls.

Addy leads me to a woman scooping ingredients for molasses cookies straight from memory, with no measuring cups, spoons, or cookbook in sight. When I ask how anyone bakes without a recipe, Addy taps her forehead and explains that people just carry the recipes they grew up with up there. I think of Grandpa, who cooks whole meals he calls his “specialties” without ever opening a cookbook, and wonder if I could learn a few “specialties” by heart too if I helped him more often.

Once the dough is mixed, Addy and I roll it into balls to be rolled out. She hands me a bottle to use as a rolling pin, and I tell her about the lemon cookies I make with Dad, where he lets me and Danny press our hands into the dough before tracing around them with a butter knife. Addy dissolves into giggles picturing hand-shaped cookies, and for a moment we’re both laughing so hard we can barely finish rolling the dough. It strikes me that laughter is something friends and family can always share, no matter how hard things get.

After we use a tin cup to cut the dough into circle shapes, the molasses cookies go into the oven. After that, Addy and I step outside the crowded kitchen and spot a little boy racing circles around a woman’s skirt, making it impossible for her to get anything done. Her expression looks exactly like Mom’s whenever Danny is about to get into trouble, so I offer to keep the children occupied while the women sort through boxes of donated dishes and glassware.

With a dozen or so restless kids in tow, I start a game of musical chairs using empty crates, clapping out a rhythm since there’s no music to play. Addy leads the dancing around the crates, and the kids squeal with laughter every time the clapping stops and everyone scrambles for a seat. When a little girl misses out and starts to cry, I invite her to clap along with me instead, and the game keeps going until only one crate and one very determined child remain.

Addy tells me she never would have thought up a game like that, and calls me a really good big sister. I can feel my cheeks reddening. She mentions she’s going to remember it to play with Esther someday. By the time the children tire out, the women have finished sorting the dishes, and everyone waves goodbye as they head home.

Worn out but happy, Addy and I wander back toward the rag bin, where the man is braiding scraps into a rug. He waves us over to try it ourselves. He teaches us to braid three strips of cloth together the way someone might braid hair, coiling them into a tight, growing circle. He explains that alone, these little scraps don’t look like much, but together they can make something wonderful, since every scrap in the room is different, the same as every person here.

My braided strips look nothing like a rug at first, and I nearly give up, but I take a breath and keep going. Addy admires what I’ve made and suggests we join our braids together, coiling and tacking them side by side until a small rug starts to take shape. The rug man tells us that people who help each other can always make things better. I think about how true that is, watching this whole church come together to give people a fresh start in freedom. People like Addy, who stays strong even while she’s apart from half her family.

When I go home, I’m going to make the best of things until Dad is back, and I’m going to appreciate Gran and Grandpa a whole lot more. I know now that they make our family something beautiful.