Mom’s handwriting filled most of them—looping and elegant at the beginning, growing shakier as the pages went on. I could track the progression of her MS in the wobble of her pen, the way her letters got larger and less controlled, the recipes shifting from full paragraphs to scattered notes.
Prime Rib - Christmas Dinner. Her handwriting, still mostly steady.
Duchess Potatoes. A little shakier.
Green Bean Casserole. The letters slanting, fighting against her failing fine motor control.
And then, about two-thirds through, I took over, dictating her verbal instructions into my precise script.
I traced the edge of one card.Cranberry-Brie Phyllo Cups. Her voice in my head:The key is not to overfill them, Connor. Less is more. Trust the flavors to do the work.
And underneath, in my writing:Mom says patience is everything. Low and slow. Don’t rush perfection.
I flipped through more pages. Her voice, my hand. A collaboration born out of necessity.
Temperature for the jus,I’d written in the margin of the prime rib card, then her dictation:
Low simmer,you’ll feel it more than see it. The surface should barely move, like breathing.
The last recipe was apple pie. The lattice had been her signature—intricate, beautiful, the kind of thing that took patience and steady hands.
People eat with their eyes first,she’d written in her shaky script. And below it, in my handwriting:Feel the dough, don’t just follow the recipe. Trust yourself.
I sat there on the floor of my bedroom, surrounded by boxes and half-folded clothes, holding my mother’s recipes and trying not to fall apart.
She’d been preparing me—not just how to cook, but how to care for something fragile. How to pay attention. How to be present in the moment instead of three steps ahead, planning for disaster.
I’d thought I was helping her by writing down her recipes as her hands failed. But she’d been giving me something to hold onto, something that would outlast her.
“Connor?” Hannah stood in the doorway, still in her work clothes, her coat halfway off.
“Hey.” My voice came out rough. I cleared my throat. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
She didn’t ask if I was okay, just dropped her coat on a chair and sat down on the floor next to me, close enough that our shoulders touched.
“Is that hers?” she asked quietly, nodding at the binder.
“Yeah.” I turned it so she could see. “Her recipes. We… I wrote them down for her. When she couldn’t anymore.”
Hannah leaned in to look, her hair brushing my shoulder. She read in silence for a moment, then reached out to touch the edge of the apple pie card.
“‘Don’t rush the process,’” she read aloud. “That’s good advice.”
“She always said I relied too much on measurements. That cooking was as much about intuition as precision.” I huffed a laugh. “Which drove me crazy. How can you replicate something if you can’t quantify it?”
“And? Did you figure it out?”
“Eventually.” I ran my thumb over her handwriting. “She was right. There’s a feel to it. When the dough is ready, when the filling is the right consistency. You can’t write that down. You just… know.”
Hannah was quiet for a moment. Then: “What was she like?”
I’d had people ask me that before. Usually I gave them the easy answer:She was great. Really kind. An amazing cook.
But with Hannah, her shoulder warm against mine, I found myself actually answering.
“She was stubborn. Refused to let the MS define her, even when it got bad. She’d be in the kitchen leaning on the counter because standing was exhausting, dictating recipes like she was running a cooking show.” I smiled despite the ache in my chest. “And she was funny. Dark humor. When she lost the ability to walk, she made me put a horn on her wheelchair so she could beep at people in grocery stores.”
Hannah laughed, and the sound loosened something in my chest.
