Long Island map
As I have mentioned before, I have an emotional attachment to crumb cakes. When I was a child growing up in Jericho, Long Island, my father would go to the Flakowitz bakery on Sunday mornings and bring back bagels, chocolate custard donuts, and my favorite, crumb cakes. Sometimes I would go with him and we would wait on a long line to get these amazing treats, along with the NY Times. Or, if I was busy finishing a wonderful book, I would wait at home for him to return, restless, checking out the window as I turned the pages. My mother would have coffee and orange juice ready, and set out the plates on the counter. My three siblings and I would pick our treat and then sit in the living room, enjoying this ritual together. Sometimes my father would play the piano with my sister, and always he would sing. My mother laughed a lot when he was alive, as we all did, because he was so full of joy and enthusiasm for life.
After Flakowitz relocated to Florida, the Milleredge Inn bakery had almost as delicious crumb cakes. My visits to my mother once I moved to Pennsylvania would include a trip for crumb cakes and her favorite, a black and white (cookie). The PUMP Station’s crumb cakes are so reminiscent of my child hood crumb cakes that eating one fills me with warm memories of my family. But they are also so delicious that I had to put them on a time out for a year so that I could adjust the power they have over me. I don’t want to exercise to eat, but eat to live healthy and with their stronghold over me, they were messing with that formula.
At my parent’s graves at Calverton National Cemetery on Long Island. I am the only living person here, as noted by my car in the distance.
This past week I was in Queens, NY for the Northeast Union Women’s Summer School. I was lucky enough to have some unscheduled time to drive 3 hours round trip to visit my mother’s grave for the first time since her funeral in November, 2009. I had not realized how emotional it would be for me, as I stood among the thousands of graves in Calverton, with nary another living person around, and just the sound of planes flying overhead and birds chirping. I stood in front of their markers thanking my parents for all they had given me, tears streaming down my cheeks. I laid on the warm, fresh cut grass directly above my mother’s body and imagined her arms around me, and feeling her fierce pride in me. I know my parents are not really there, but I felt the embrace of their spirit and heard their welcoming voices in my head.
When my father was buried this was a new section, now it is completely filled with graves.
I saw these wild turkeys when I was leaving the cemetery. Such a quiet place.
After a while, as I watched the clouds slowly float above, my thoughts turned to the special people who bring so much happiness to my life now. There are so many. With a full and contented heart, I said good-bye to the beloved remains of my parents.
The bakery at the Milleridge Inn
I drove to Jericho and saw my mother’s home, still surprisingly unchanged. Then I went to Milleridge Inn and into the bakery. I thought I might take a picture of crumb cakes for memory sake, but was already debating about eating them. I decided there was no bad decision either way. But there were no crumb cakes. The young woman behind the counter told me that they only make them on Saturday and Sundays now, but offered me an apple crumb tart, or a crumb strudel. I smiled and told her no thank you, that it was a good thing indeed that there were no crumb cakes. With a happy heart, full of nostalgia, and smiling at the supposed coincidence, for most certainly crumb cakes would have threatened my not very resolute resolve, I left.
When you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.
