I think most of us have memories of certain things or people or something prepared by our close ones, which we consider as precious. We believe that anything similar can never come up to that standard.
My mother makes a sweet dessert from semolina and sugar and coconut which I think is best in the world. Prepared by anyone else just does not measure up to what my mother prepares. My children feel the same way about the ‘thove’ she prepares from ‘ toor dal’. They always ask her to make it for them.
We were talking about our memories recently. Our grandson and daughter had come for a short visit, to attend her best friend’s wedding. My parents too had come to enjoy the company of their great grandson. We all enjoyed his presence. All that he did was so very sweet. In later years they are going to be precious memories. My father was telling about his mother who passed away when he was only twelve. He has very few memories of her. He is now 83 but still remembers the taste of the sweet dessert she used to prepare from foxtail millet, jaggery and coconut milk. He grew up in the northern part of our state where millets are a staple diet . In the south we do not use them much. My mother had prepared the same dessert but my father says the one prepared by his mother was something special, no one could ever make it the same way. My mother does not mind because she has similar memories. 🙂 He wonders why he is so sure about the taste when his mother had been with him only for twelve years.
My father in law has similar memories . A certain sweet dessert prepared long ago by a relative is the best, according to him nobody can prepare it like that. He waxes eloquent about that taste.
I don’t know whether we look back through rose coloured spectacles and keep on adding something to that experience or are our memories so very clear? My mother tells me about her father. He was a special person and a loving grandfather. He loved to have his family around him. During our summer vacations , every evening we used to sit together and talk. Those were fun days and are sweet memories now. I hope our grandson will enjoy the company of his great grandparents for many more years and in later years will have sweet memories of them.
“Nothing is ever really lost to us as long as we remember it.”
― L.M. Montgomery, The Story Girl
Like this:
Like Loading...
