Cherry Nut Cake

August 29, 2005
Dear Cousins,

My sisters and I were cleaning out my Mother's home, to get it ready to sell. As you are well aware, it is a grueling task, emotionally as well as physically. There is always a process of asking oneself: Is this something someone else in the family might want?

After several days, and even weeks (for my sisters,) exhaustion sets in, and how easy it is to have the philosophy “Toss and ask questions later…”

So, it was in this mindset that I started to clean out my own house of clutter, and came across neatly typed and plastic-protected index cards. On each one contained secrets that are quite valuable, although they may be considered 'arcane' by today's standards. Who sifts flour anymore? Who eats that much butter or sugar or cream cheese? Cherries have Red Dye #2!

When I came across those paper/plastic gems, however, I began to appreciate the thought, time, and effort that went into creating those recipes. How tired each of you were, just as we McMahon daughters are today. How emotionally distraught you must have been at having to dismantle a home that had become your own over so many years. How grieved by the loss of your parents, and how each item that you handled must have reminded you of what you had lost.

Yet, you did something I could never so deeply appreciate until this moment: You thought about the future. You thought about what was precious and irreplaceable. You thought about something that, at a glance, would bring back a flood of memories about everything wonderful in being a Munroe girl. Wonderful about being raised by a Munroe Mother. Then, you did one step more: With love and tenderness (and I see one or both of you at it now, as I write), you typed it up, you recorded it. You saved it and passed it along.

It is my 50th birthday coming up soon, and Daniel handed me an index card that got displaced from the others in the cookbook rack. As fate would have it, it was Cherry Nut Cake,--my absolute favorite cake in the entire world. Yes, I do love chocolate in everything else, but even a rich double chocolate cake can't hold a candle to Cherry Nut, and to that rich frosting that delights the top.

I was instantly transported back to being about 8 or 9, I guess. It was the fall; I was outside in the backyard when my Aunt Elsa showed up with it. She was no doubt helping out her sister by making the cake for her third child's birthday. Ruthie had a toddler and a preschooler in addition to the three older ones. And as I write this, I can feel all the love for my Aunt Elsa, all the tuna fish sandwiches with potato chips, the pearls during dress-up, the way she was always 'just so' in her dress and homemaking. I can taste that cake she made for me, and how great my birthday was because of that wonderful cake my Aunt made.

All this comes flooding back to me, and I just wanted to say “Thank you” for saving the most important things from your Mother, and passing them on to me. I will cherish them forever, and pass them on to Sarah.

Much love and kisses,