Through social network I saw her share batches and batches of fresh baked cookies for the December holidays. I envy her for so gracefully baking and sharing her cookies. I felt jealous that I was not part of her inner circle to receive her cookies. Although as a mere social media voyeur I did feel the love she shared in the act of baking.
Today, also as social media voyeur, I found out she died. Yes, she died! Heart attack. Just like that. Gone! She did show symptoms but her closest friend say she dismissed it as panic attacks. I read all the messages and notes of sorrow. I too felt sorrow and sadness. I never told her how her cookies warmed my heart. I pity myself for not reattributing her baked love. Shame on me!
Death once again caught us by surprise. Sneaky thing. So certain and so disguised. The most equitable and democratic event in being: death! Takes everyone, it is not if, but when. When will our number come? And how will it be? Quick in a form of a heart attack? Painful and dramatic in a car crash? Through a long and debilitating illness? Or from old age?
Death’s irony is that the longer we stay in the planet the lonely we get. How painful it is to experience everyone around you leave while waiting for your number to be called? Or to look at yourself in the mirror and not see the same flame you think you still have? Or even knowing and not remembering the knowledge? Trapped into a body that you once had control and yet slowly abandons you in preparation for the departure. Gloomy but reality. Sad, but liberating…
Back to the baked cookies… I could use one, although I shouldn’t. Life is passing fast and cookies along with ice-cream are my e-z pass to the other side. Heat attack runs in the family. It’s like the family trademark! A kind of privileged royal heritage resting on the assumption that one doesn’t suffer. Lucky ones, no pain! How do we know? And what about the ones left behind?! Sudden death is an amputation in the heart for the loved ones. I know… been there, done that… 10 years recuperating from my father’s “royal” heart attack! He may not suffered but what about me?!!
Back again to the baked cookies…. the loving baker though she was having panic attacks. Her body was alerting her for the eminent halt, yet, like a good loving baker, she dismissed her own signs. Or did somebody else dismissed it? Aren’t women always having some emotional break down? Would she still be baking if she were from another genre?
Women and heart attacks. So little known still. Women are physically different than men, and until we accept that, not to segregate but to embrace, women will be dying of panic attacks, nervous breakdown and even hysteria. I guess the woman-baker was “lucky” since she may have been spared of suffering but her many empty baking sheets reflect the emptiness she left behind.