How Baking Pies Became My Lifeline After Loss
Grief led me to the kitchen long before I understood why. I didn’t plan to become “the girl who baked pies for strangers.” I just needed something to keep my hands busy so my heart wouldn’t shatter.
It was a bitter January night when smoke filled the house. My dad pulled me outside into the snow, but my mom and grandpa never made it. The fire didn’t just destroy my family—it consumed our home, our photos, savings, even the little ceramic horse my mom gave me for my tenth birthday. I was the only one left standing in the yard.
A youth shelter took me in: dorm-style beds, shared bathrooms, a common kitchen. My aunt Denise called once—she had “no room” for me, keeping half the insurance payout for herself. I didn’t fight. Numbness often looks like compliance.
By day, I buried myself in schoolwork, clinging to scholarships like oxygen. By night, I disappeared into the shelter kitchen. I learned flour by feel, butter by scent, and how to make a wine bottle do the work of a rolling pin. Blueberry, apple, cherry, peach, strawberry-rhubarb—I baked as many pies as I could afford. Sometimes ten. Sometimes twenty. In the quiet rhythm of mixing, rolling, and filling, I found a way to keep going.
