What Love Smells Like

What I remember most about Grandma’s house is the way it smelled.

It smelled like pie and cookies and Christmas and memories and love.

Long before my family would begin the 2,000-mile trip across the country to Grandma and Grandpa’s house, Grandma would start preparing for us to come. Most of that work was done in a flour-dusted apron, with rolling pin in hand.

For weeks before we arrived, she rolled out pie crusts, baked bars, and stocked her five(!) freezers with all manner of chocolatey desserts, Scandinavian cookies, and cinnamon rolls (each tray wrapped with a rumpled sheet of thrice-used foil).

As soon as we stepped into her house, the number-one priority (after a round of hugs) was pie. No matter what time we arrived, even if we were bleary eyed, even if it was egad-o’clock in the morning, we would eat a slice of pie. Huckleberry pie, rhubarb pie, French apple pie—every bite made from scratch.  

The next morning at Grandma’s house, my nose would wake up before the rest of me did. From my sleeping quarters with the cousins in the basement, I’d be welcomed into consciousness by the scent of homemade donuts.

Grandma wasn’t one to sit down for heart-to-heart conversations, and she didn’t have much time for lofty words or emotive speeches. She loved with her hands instead of her words.

I love you, she said with every mixer stroke. I love you, she said with every roll of her pie crust (including the leftover bits, which she’d sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon and give to us grandkids). I love you, she said as she preserved another jar of jam made from Grandpa’s fresh-grown raspberries. I love you, she said with every knead of cinnamon roll dough (which she unapologetically served with dinner and were not dessert).

***

I got the call about Grandma’s death on a sunny September morning. She was 96, and she hadn’t made cookies for some years now, so this wasn’t a surprise. But in that moment, decades of memories came flooding over me.

“What was your grandma like?” my boys ask me.

There are so many ways to answer that question. Do I tell them about the tenacious farm girl who loved to ride her horse, Dewey, instead of sew like her sister? Do I tell them about the brave young woman who left her parents’ farm in North Dakota to get a college degree in business at a time when most women were homemakers? Do I tell them about the young teacher who set off for a job in Montana, having never visited, because the people she’d met from there were nice? Do I tell them about the handsome chemistry teacher who saw her picture in the paper and volunteered to pick her up at the train station and how they were married for 66 years?

I open my mouth to respond, but none of the words taste right on my tongue.

“Come into the kitchen,” I say instead. “Let’s make a pie.”

We slice and mix and sprinkle and make a sugary mess before putting the pie in the oven. As the aroma of warm apples and cinnamon filters through the house, I whisper in their ears, “This is what Grandma’s love smells like.” And as we take a bite of buttery apples with strudel, I tell them, “This is what Grandma’s love tastes like.”

***

Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am.
John 14:1-3

As I wash the pie tin (the one Grandma gave me), it occurs to me that Grandma is on the other side of the preparations now. The woman who prepared endlessly for meals and holidays and parties and visits from out-of-town grandchildren is now going to a place that has been prepared just for her. Her Savior has been at work, getting his home ready for her, stocking the heavenly freezer for her arrival.

I wouldn’t necessarily bank on this theology, but who knows? Maybe, just maybe, a slice of pie will be waiting for her when she gets there.