Tragedy, Time, and Coming Out the Other Side; Condolence Cupcakes

On Wednesday morning, our dear friend Tom was called with the terrible news that his son had died in his sleep. The first thing he did was call Phil, and Phil accompanied him to break the news to Jeanie and bring her home from work. Yesterday morning around 6.15, I drove Phil and Tom to the airport: zero degrees and whiteout, so much snow in the air, but the little plane took them up to Anchorage to catch the big plane down to Seattle, where they are now, taking care of things.

Needless to say, it's a huge loss and shock: a new spin on the world around which we all change our plans. Saving graces: both Tom and Jeanie had had upbeat phone conversations with Luke the night before, and knew he was in good spirits. And I don't know if this is a saving grace or not, but my read is that this actually happened a long time ago, that the way Tom and Jeanie have been living their life for some time already reflects it as fact. Which means, in a way, that he's still here. We all sense that.  Tom and Phil down in WA are meeting hordes of people who loved Luke, who were touched by his generous spirit. I've barely gotten to see Jeanie since they left, there's been such an overflow of support from all the many other people in this community who love Tom and Jeanie.

Tom is so glad to have Phil with him--and isn't it a compliment to Phil that he's the first person Tom thought of to call. Encomia of Phil are pouring in from all quarters at the moment, and I hope he hears them, and recognizes how appreciated he is by so many.

I haven't slept since we heard the news, but I think I will tonight. I watched it snow all day and all night yesterday, as I immersed myself in work and reading, and trying to write something...into this morning...

 Our "bunny fence" isn't worth much with the snow up above it. I shoveled.

I confess that the nonlinearity of timing this exhibited--my certainty that it happened long ago--sent me into a tailspin: if "a" doesn't follow "b," then it won't make any difference if I don't take my meds, or eat, or sleep, and do take pills I shouldn't take... Going nowhere good. But by some other incredible serendipity, the phone rang first thing this morning, and it was the Naturopath's office, about something else. They got me to come in, to get my chemistry set right again, talked me down from paranoia about time being all out of order...So grateful both to my ND himself and to his wonderful office manager. I didn't want it to be all about me. And now, although I don't feel great, I'm ok, and although I'm still puzzled about the time thing, I'm not totally freaked out. I still don't understand, but I'm more likely to be able to be there to support Phil now.

I made a simple dinner for all of us on Wednesday night, the day the news hit. Short notice and busy day, and I wanted to make something sweet to finish with. In this situation, the temptation is to make something overwhelmingly sugary that I wouldn't dream of eating myself, and I did make a batch of Phil's energy bars, which are protein powder, nuts, craisins, oats in a matrix of peanut butter and honey boiled together, partly to be journey food for them. But I decided I also wanted to serve something raw, light, delicious, beautiful, and gentle.
So I made these "Condolence Cupcakes:" they're inspired by Shannonmarie's Lemon Rawtess Cupcakes, although I made them mini and didn't put pretty frosting and piping on top.

3/4 cup cashews
3/4 cup unsweetened dried shredded coconut
pinch salt
zest of one lemon
Blend all these until fine.
Add:
1/3 cup date paste or finely chopped dates
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Whisk in until well incorporated.
I ground the nuts with the "S" blade of the Cuisinart, but then, for incorporating the dates, I used the little "dough" blade, the plastic "S" shaped one that isn't sharp, to keep the texture fluffy. When it can be formed into a dough, fill the mini cupcake cups with little hollowed-out "cakes," reserving some 'dough' to top them.
For the filling, I used some frosting leftover from our Anniversary Carrot Cake (recipe is there).

Just a little blob of frosting in the hollowed-out cashew-coco-lemon 'dough' (like in the picture above), and then cover it with some reserved 'dough.'

It made about fifteen. And they were so well appreciated! Apparently some of them are in WA with Phil and Tom.
The lemon symbolizes the sadness, wrapped up in sweetness.

Today the snow finally stopped, and when I went downtown my copy of the Georgia Review, featuring a poem by a good friend from the program, no less, had finally arrived. I'd never seen the sky stippled white, gray and blue in quite this way before and had to stop to try and capture it, even though I could feel the marrow of my jaw freezing. Things are looking up.