A lot can happen when you’re baking bread.
And a lot happened Thursday.
In the time it took to knead the ingredients into dough, let it rise, roll it out again into neat balls for buns, and let it rise a second time… life happened. Grief happened. Loss threaded itself into the folds, quietly but firmly.
When I set the dough out to rise the first time, it wasn’t doing what I wanted. It sat there, stagnant, stubborn. So, I handed it over to God. I took the bowl outside and placed it on the hood of my car, letting that God-infused sunlight do what it does best: make things warm, make things grow.
Just as I stepped back inside, my phone rang. A friend, calling to open the floodgates she’d been holding back for days. One of her family members had attempted suicide. He’s still alive, but she was shaken. She needed space, needed time. She just wanted me to know she was still here — coming back, just not yet.
She’s my work accountability partner. Her silence had been noticeable. But we talked it through. I’m not a therapist. I’m just a friend. And sometimes that’s enough.
I thought that was all for the day.
But then the dough came back inside. I rolled it off into hot cross buns — small, uniform, deliberate. Their timing was symbolic. Tomorrow is Good Friday. That’s what we eat: fish, hot cross buns, silence.
I placed them back into the God-infused sun.
And then the second call came.
This time, it was my oldest confidant.
It took her a while to say two words: He’s gone.
One of her dear friends had died. Suddenly. And the news gutted her. I could hear her unravelling in real-time. It’s a story she’s lived too many times. Her grief is grief I’ve felt. And because it’s her, her grief becomes my own.
She had to hang up — couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t process. She’ll call me back when she can.
She’s strong. Eldest daughter strong. Always in control. Just like me. Which means when she crumbles, she crumbles hard. Quiet devastation, the kind that shakes the scaffolding.
I pulled the buns out of the sun and placed them in the oven. The final test. Against heat, chemistry, time — everything that could go wrong or burn too fast or rise unevenly. I just needed to see: would they make it?
They did.
Golden. Risen. Whole.
But at a cost.
A cost the bride — the one I gifted some of the buns to — will never know. But a cost nonetheless.
It’s a mindfuck, truly. To have placed my hands in flour for the first time in over a year, wanting only to create something beautiful — only to witness devastation in the process. To be the quiet witness to pain, to answer the phone with dough on my hands. To knead grief into something tangible and still come away unsure whether it’s joy or survival that keeps you moving.
But there’s bread at the end of the day.
It’s here, ready to eat.
I just hope I can enjoy it.
—
Song: Heaven Help Us All
Artist: Stevie Wonder
Album: Sign, Sealed & Delivered
Release Date: 1970
