Christmas Eve this year started the same as it usually does; I woke up moody and wanting to be alone. I assumed it was because I didn’t sleep well or because I was stressed about all the things left to do. But I am no stranger to last minute panic, it’s what I do best.

It takes me a few hours every Christmas Eve morning to connect my grouchiness to losing my mom on Christmas Eve. Since it happened so long ago, it still surprises me. Subconsciously, the memories flit around in my head, I add the years up, and the sadness inevitably settles in. As some good friends just reminded me, grief is a sneaky jerk. A big, heavy, sneaky jerk.

This year hit especially hard. I drove to the store to get cream cheese because I had accidentally bought the lower fat Neufchatel for my mom’s cheesecake (no thanks) and while pulling into the parking lot it dawned on me that the moment had come; I had officially lived the same amount of time without my mom as I had lived with her. From that point on, I would be in the red, in a deficit of mom-influence. And something inside of me ached.

I have found that when grief is being pushy, it is best to let it surface. Even in the parking lot of Safeway with a big to-do list in my hand. It’s usually in those moments when God’s nearness feels palpable. I let myself cry and in the midst of it, a section of my favorite read this year Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat popped in my head. That sounds like a weird shift in thought, but I’ve have enough seasons of broken-heartedness to know that it was God’s creative way of speaking comfort straight to me.

“Get in the habit of pulling out the meat you plan to cook for dinner right when you get home from work and you’ll learn that time can do some of the work of good cooking even better than the oven can. And just as cooking doesn’t begin when the flame is lit, nor does it end when the flame dies out. The chemical reactions generated by heat develop momentum, and they don’t stop the second you turn off the flame. Proteins in particular are susceptible to carryover- continued cooking that results from residual heat trapped within a food.” – Samin Nosrat

I like to think we are like proteins, particularly susceptible to carryover. Just because I got 25 years with my mom and now have had 25 years without her, it doesn’t mean that she is fading from my life. My mom’s love and influence did not end when her flame on earth went out. So much of what she said, how she listened, what she taught, and how she lived are trapped within me. I am still soaking in her warmth.