Today is our oldest son’s 21st birthday. It feels like a special age, a so-called ‘crown year’.
He would have liked to have a so called 21 dinner. A dinner at our home at a beautifully set table, with friends, fellow students and speeches. Unfortunately, it won’t be possible due to Covid. And because his studies are almost entirely online due to Covid, he has barely seen or spoken fellow students in his new study, let alone met them. Our youngest son’s eighteenth birthday also passed almost unnoticed.
The gift ordered online has been on its way for a week and a half so it’ll be too late. Unfortunately we have no influence on that, but we did bake a mountain of his favorite food: sausage rolls. Based on a delicious, slightly adapted, family recipe from my mother-in-law, who is from the Dutch traditional sausage roll area. Baking sausage rolls during Christmas is a tradition that we will also pass on: I’m sure the boys will ask about this in the future. We adapt the tradition a little by not only baking in December, but ‘as needed’ [read: all year round, which actually means twice a year, because it really is a lot of work].
I will clearly indicate in the recipe that you must dissolve the fresh yeast in lukewarm milk. I wasn’t paying attention, let the yeast die in too warm milk and messed up my first dough. Still almost 3.5 kg for sixty rolls…
Today is also World Wide Candle Lighting Day. A day, every second Sunday in December, on which deceased children are remembered and candles will be lit at 7 p.m.
On a day like this I realize even more how privileged I am that I have two healthy children and that we can celebrate birthdays – no matter how small.
No child is as present as the child who is missed.
I am going to light candles for a number of children whose parents I know and two children in particular who I have known personally. These two were apparently in good health, until minor problems came to light when they were toddlers. Ultimately, it turned out that they had inherited a gene from both parents that caused their metabolism to malfunction. They were only twelve and fourteen years old.
I can’t imagine anything worse than losing a child. Let alone two children. No parent should have to go through that.
One of the thoughts that crossed my mind when I received my breast cancer diagnosis: luckily I have it and not my children. I know my father hated the diagnosis and he was very concerned about my health. I am grateful that my father did not have to experience the loss of a child.