Lucia’s Cake
The one year anniversary of my grandmother’s death falls on January 26. She was 97 years old. She was my sole surviving grandparent. She was also the only grandparent I had a bond with. We were never super close, but we had a unique bond that worked for me — I never wished it to be more or less of what we had. When I lived in Washington, DC, she lived in a high rise retirement home less than ten minutes away from me across the border in Maryland. At least once a week I walked to her place to visit her. During my visits, Lucia always had a meal waiting for me. Though I almost always showed up alone, she would have a spread that could feed multiple people: two types of stewed meats, a hot and a cold salad, fried or boiled plantains, and two types of rice. She included a bottle of 7UP (her favorite soda) to wash everything down. If she felt ambitious, she baked a cake in her tiny kitchen and had it waiting for me to take home. With a wink and a toothy grin, Lucia would pass me a small wheel wrapped in foil, oftentimes with a wedge missing (a habit that irritated my mother — Lucia oftentimes cut out pieces from food, even produce, before gifting it to you). I could smell the sweetness and cinnamon goodness of my grandmother’s dense cake without unwrapping it. After my meal, I would have a large slice of cake and paired it with a glass of 7UP. I wolfed down each bite and crumb. When it was time to go home, she sent me packing with leftovers, random foods given to her and her neighbors by the retirement home’s social worker, and my cake.
“Grandma, when are you going to teach me how to make your cake?”
“Whenever! Let me know when!”
Grandma continued to bake her cakes as her chef’s hat started to grow more crooked each year. When my brother, who has a very limited palate, began to complain about her cooking, everyone in the family knew Grandma had lost her touch in the kitchen. Her savory dishes became too greasy, too salty or too bland. Her delicious cakes started coming out too dry. Some bites revealed tiny bits of eggshell. Though I declined her meals often (which offended her greatly), I still accepted a cake anytime she baked one.
“You keep saying you want me to show you how to bake my cake.”
“I know, Grandma. I’ll let you know.”
People always marveled at my grandmother. If there was ever a poster child for independence, Lucia posed for it proudly. She never married and never relied on a man — or anyone — for anything. She also barely spoke English. Always an early riser, Lucia started her hustle early and was out the house by seven in the morning. I lived with her when I was six years old. I remember how she ripped through the streets of Brooklyn with my brother and me in tow, tuckering us out before the day’s end. We took the train and bus to get around since Grandma didn’t know how to drive. Yet, she knew how to get everywhere and where to get everything she needed without relying on anyone for assistance or guidance. Lucia was the caretaker for everyone and never wanted anyone to do for her.
“C’mon, Grandma. Let me do the dishes for you. You cooked all this food. Let me help you.”
“I got it!”
“But Grand-“
“Bat zèl ou! Ale!” (“Flap your wings home! Go!”)
My family and I always looked forward to visiting my grandmother for Christmas or summer break. She provided hotel-style accommodations in her small one-bedroom hotbox Brooklyn apartment. You never wanted for anything and she always managed to have beds for an average of six people. As soon as we entered her place in the summer, fans blared and the smell of food wafted in the blown air. Grandma, smiling her toothy gold-laced grin, welcomed us with big hugs and kisses. She had our post-travel repast waiting for us. We greedily ate saucy shrimp, juicy stewed chicken, watercress salad with tomato slices, steamed carrots and green beans with homemade vinaigrette, and red beans and rice. If she made diri djon djon, a rice that’s turned black and aromatic from the djon djon mushroom, it was a celebration. Instead of 7UP, she had cola champagne. Of course, she’d have cake. She had all the food and drink we didn’t find back home. After filling our bellies to distention, reality struck us. Grandma didn’t have central air conditioning or heat. Grandma kept plastic on her furniture. Grandma’s ceiling peeled and the paint landed anywhere around you — sometimes on you, sometimes found stuck under your foot. Grandma’s radiator blasted one level of heat during the winter: dry mega-hot.
After digesting, we would unstick our sweaty flesh from her bright red sofa and get ready for bed. Grandma had everyone’s toothbrushes laid out; each person assigned a different color. Our toothbrushes matched the color of our towels. She also purchased new bottles of lotion and boxes of soap (her favorite: Irish Spring). After taking a shower, I loved putting on one of her perfumes or powders she had displayed in the stand above her toilet. She always had Coco Chanel №5, Jean Naté, and the ubiquitous Haitian staple: Bien Être. After slathering my body with an off-brand baby lotion that still left me ashy, I’d powder my armpits, chest, and back with Coco Chanel №5.
My grandmother also took care of us from afar. She sent us boxes regularly when I was growing up. She used brown paper bags and stringy white medical tape to wrap our care packages. I still remember her address scrawled in her hand on the box. Her handwriting looked childlike. She didn’t go to school beyond third grade.
“Yay! A box from Grandma!”
“Be careful with that knife opening the box.”
“Okay, Mommy!”
My grandmother always packed the box with plantain (which was almost nonexistent in Fort Riley, KS — where we lived for seven years), Chifles brand plantain chips, some herb or spice my mother requested, and root vegetables — malanga or boniato potato. If she had space, she’d manage to get a bottle of Lakay cola champagne in the box. If we were lucky, she packed one of her cakes, too.
“Mommy, where’s the cake Grandma made?”
“Your father ate the last slice.”
“But Papi always eats the most!”
Lucia also stayed with my family for long stretches of time to help my mother out. She stayed with us for a year when we lived in Hawaii and I was about four years old. She also stayed a year with us when we lived in Kansas when I was a bit older (around eight years old), and when my grandmother’s extended visit irritated me. Things had to be done her way or she snitched to my mother, which resulted in me receiving a spanking. I grew tired of eating her food every day (I quickly learned my lesson to not tell my grandmother something was my favorite, otherwise she would make it every single day with no end in sight). However, there was one thing that always lifted my mood and attitude. When I walked in the house after school, my grandmother, who always posted herself in the kitchen, would greet me with that golden smile of hers. I knew without either of us talking that she baked a cake just from her smile and the smell of sweetness greeting me at the front door. Sometimes she baked a large sheet cake, but most times she baked a 9-inch round one. I would grab frosting from the cupboard and apply a thick coating on a warm slice. The frosting melted down and I sopped it up with huge forkfuls of cake.
“Grandma, do you think you can tell me the recipe over the phone?”
“Ah, I don’t measure. I can’t tell you what to do. You have to watch me.”
“Okay, next weekend I’ll come over and we will bake a cake.”
In the last several years of her life, Lucia’s chef’s hat had fallen off completely. She developed an ulcer decades ago, which affected what she could eat. This limited her diet to a few root vegetables, rice and peas, and poultry — all seasoned lightly. She also stopped cooking for my family and me. After she had exploratory surgery, she couldn’t stand long enough to make her elaborate meals. This turned out to be a small blessing in disguise — my mother and I felt bad throwing away food Lucia made for us. Between her bad eyes and ulcer, her food became so inedible we had no choice but to throw it out.
Lucia used to bake cakes for weddings, baptisms, communions, and birthdays. People sought after my grandmother to bake large sculpture-like designs. After she moved to Maryland from New York, she didn’t bake for people anymore. She randomly baked for my siblings and me. But now she couldn’t stand to cook, which meant she couldn’t stand to bake. No more cakes.
“You said you were coming last weekend to bake a cake, remember? What happened?”
“I know, Grandma, I’m sorry. I should’ve called you.”
Along with my grandmother’s eyesight and appetite, her mind started to go. Looking back, she started suffering from dementia over ten years ago. No one knew it. Lucia had always been a stubborn woman, so I figured old age mixed with her stubbornness had her behaving oddly. Some days, her behavior was so disturbing I left her place in a huff or abruptly ended our telephone conversations. Promises to bake her cake together went away. I couldn’t stand to be around her if she continued to say things that weren’t true about me and other family members. I didn’t want to spend more than ten minutes with her during those visits. On a rare occasion, Lucia behaved well and she and I got along.
“Here are my cake decorating books and tools.”
“Wow, Grandma. These books go back to the 60s! Thank you!”
“I made this cake, and this one, and that one.”
“Grandma those are beautiful!”
“I wish I could do this again. Every weekend I was making a cake for someone’s wedding or communion. I made all these just from looking at the pictures in the books.”
“Your cakes are the best.”
“And you keep telling me you want me to teach you, huh!”
“I know, I know…”
In December 2017, my grandmother’s doctor said she could no longer live alone. Lucia’s mind started to decline significantly. My mother and I cleaned out her apartment and took only the essentials: clothes that fit and weren’t threadbare, photos, and important documents. I personally took a few items from her kitchen, one of which was a large stainless steel bowl that has come in handy since taking possession of it. At first, my grandmother stayed in a rehab facility that was close to my job. I did my best to visit her regularly. She and I had pleasant conversations each visit, despite her calling me a “bad seed” from time to time. I just had to remind myself that it wasn’t my grandmother talking, it was the dementia. Also, I noticed how dementia ate up more of her mind. Lucia oftentimes forgot who I was in the middle of a visit. She saw birds and insects that weren’t there. She heard and saw water flowing on the ground. She started to lose the little English she knew. Eventually, my mother had her moved to a facility near her home that accommodated people with dementia.
The first time I visited my grandmother at her new facility was on her birthday in June 2018. My mother and I went together. We stood at the doorway and watched her sitting before her dinner tray as she played with the rumpled sheets on her bed. She mumbled to herself. My mother asked me to walk in first to see if she would recognize me. I slowly walked in and sang “Happy Birthday” in French, hoping she’d perk up. At first, my grandmother didn’t hear or see me. I walked closer to her and sang louder. She looked over at me, confused. I kissed her forehead and said, “Happy Birthday, Grandma.” She chuckled and muttered something. She didn’t know who I was or why I was singing Happy Birthday. My mother walked in and Lucia instantly recognized her. She told my grandmother that today was her birthday. Lucia could not register this message. I pulled out my phone to show her pictures, hoping that she would recognize her other grandchildren and great-grandchildren. When I showed her pictures of herself, she looked up at me confused. When I asked her who was the woman smiling back at her, she shrugged. Lucia didn’t recognize herself. The woman who had never forgotten anyone’s birthday did not know that day was her birthday. She was not aware of her existence. I kept my emotions buried deep. My mother and I soon walked out, after my grandmother’s nurse warned that we shouldn’t stay long. If we overstayed our visit, Lucia would cry to come home with us. We left my grandmother with her tray of half-eaten food, saying behind us, “So, you’re leaving me here?”
Months prior to that visit, I lamented to someone how I didn’t think I’d ever learn how to make my grandmother’s cake. This person told me if I brought her to my home and had all the supplies, my grandmother would be able to carry on as if she didn’t have dementia. Since this is a long-term memory, my grandmother would be able to bake a cake automatically. However, visiting Lucia on her birthday had shown me that she was too far gone to remember anything. The only legacy I cared to receive from my grandmother was her delectable cake recipe, now forever lost. If she couldn’t remember who she was, there was no way she’d remember her cake recipe.
“Grandma! I didn’t think you could still bake!”
“Well, sometimes I do.”
“How did you make a cake so small!”
Grandma never revealed her secrets. She always gave a Cheshire cat grin when you asked her how she made the impossible possible. Whether you asked her about her family history or what she was up to, she felt it was no one’s business unless she made it known on her own. She was the original Secret Squirrel. By then, she didn’t hold onto secrets on purpose. Dementia had evaporated her secrets along with her memories and personality. Dementia wanted Lucia’s cake and it ate it, too. On January 26, 2020, Lucia passed away quietly in her sleep.
Though I have beaten myself up for having missed an opportunity to learn how to make my grandmother’s cake, I am comforted by the feeling of her presence next to me in the kitchen. Every time I use her stainless steel bowl — every single time — I think of her and all the wonderful meals she prepared in it. Whenever I use her serving spoon, I think of her, scooping out stewed turkey and sauce as she made my plate. I also have come to realize that my love of cooking and baking is innate because she passed it down to me through her blood. Lucia runs through my veins and infuses my cooking and baking with her essence. When I bake a cake, I think of her and yes, for a split second I regret at that moment that it isn’t Lucia’s cake that I’m making. However, I whisper into the ether how grateful I am that I know how to bake and enjoy doing it. I know Lucia hears me and smiles that toothy, golden smile of hers as her spirit joins me in the kitchen. My cakes may not be Lucia’s cake, but I take solace knowing that I don’t make them alone.
