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May 16, 2005

A Good Hard Cry and A Good Grade

I woke up this morning and I looked at the calendar. I knew what today was and I was already sad. After a few email conversations later this morning, the pain intensified. This just isn't right. I took a "bumming" lunch and spent 45 minutes reading the news on the internet, I was not in the mood to do any work.

After work, I drove over to my side of town, picked up my dry cleaning, and then headed to class. First day back after a week off and I was already tired before I even got there. Every day, instead of calling attendance, they have us put our signatures on a sign-in sheet. Next to my name was a * with a note above for all of the *'s to see her. I asked what it was about. She said that last week she gave us a progress report, showing our grades and where we stood in the class. I wasn't worried about this class. This was the midterm that ended up being open-book open-note. I figured I did pretty good on the exam but when I looked on the sheet I saw... 107!

When I got home, it hit me, although I knew why I had been sad all day, I had mostly been able to hold it back. Today was the day that my Great Aunt Ruth left us three years ago. My Aunt Ruth was an amazing woman.

All my life I wanted to be just like her. She was independent and didn't take any crap from anybody. She ran her life like she saw fit and didn't answer to anybody. She never got married and never had kids, and as far as I could see.. She was one of the happiest people I had ever met.

She never had kids of her own, but she prided herself in spoiling her nieces and nephews rotten. From the summer after 4th grade thru the summer before my sophomore year of high school I would go spend a month or so with her. She lived in a small country town (population less than 800) and I loved staying there. Her best friend ran the Senior Citizen's Project and I would go to work with her everyday and cook. Hmmm... Wonder why I am where I am today?

Aunt Ruth knew many years ago that I needed to be in culinary school. One summer she bought a new refrigerator and it had an ice cream maker in it. I thought that was the coolest thing in the world and of course I found the recipe with the most steps and ingredients to try first. I made a Watermelon Ice Cream. I wish I had a picture of it because it turned out great. It was actually a large layered ball of ice cream. Watermelon ice cream on the inside, complete with white & dark chocolate chips to simulate the seeds. Next was a thin layer of vanilla ice cream, and on top was a slightly thicker layer of Lime Sherbert. I got a paintbrush and painted darker green waves over the lime sherbert. When presented, it looked like a half of a watermelon sitting on a plate and when you sliced it .. it looked like the inside of a watermelon.

When I decided to go to Baylor in 1992, she asked why.. But she always supported me. My house in Sealy had been on the market for 13 months and I was just 14 days away from finally closing on the sale of my first home and 21 days from the day I would move out and move back to Central Texas. Being closer to Aunt Ruth & my grandparents was a major motivating factor when I decided to quit teaching and move back to Waco. Aunt Ruth had been sick and passed away in her home from a pulmonary embolism that afternoon. My life changed that day and I will never be the same.

Aunt Ruth would have been extremely proud of the fact that I am finally following my dream and have made it to Culinary School, and that I am excelling in my new found path. As my mother has done in the past, I called Aunt Ruth's best friend, Jackie, and told her that I wanted to talk to Aunt Ruth. Jackie replied that she did too. I was a sad day for all of us. I miss her so much.

She was my biggest fan and my biggest supporter... But more importantly, she was my HERO!

Posted by FutureFoodTVStar at May 16, 2005 09:18 PM

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