“Where the great mountains of Mpumalanga collide, there stands the town of Tonga on the fertile soil and deserted surrounding forest. When the gentle golden sun rises, so does my mother. Every morning, she fills our hearts with affirmations of love while preparing to fill our kitchen with an aroma of vanilla baking in the oven. Like the sun rising, her warm bread rises in the oven after she delightfully marries flour to yeast.

“The trick is to add the yeast to warm water so it can activate before adding flour”, she says to the family as we watch her knead magic in her palms. With a sharp eye and a handful of skill, she adds a mixture of warm water and yeast to flour, then tops it off with sugar and a pinch of salt.

“The trick is to love what you do”, my brother replies as he tries to memorize how the recipe goes. Despite his attempts to customize the recipes, he has never been able to bake pastries the way our mother does.

My mother’s bread has been dubbed as the best in the community. After her morning baking, the kitchen smells like a fresh scent of cinnamon and the back yard has an array of hungry neighbors ready to purchase baked goods that come with a complementary smile.

On most days, my mother feels like the mother of the community. With a steady hand holding a tray of steamy bread and a lot of wit, she walks into her mini neighborhood bakery while striking numerous conversations at once. As she serves her baked goods, belly-rooted laughter echoes from the backyard like music and memories are woven into our hearts like delicate yarn as sparkling eyes gleam over her confident demeanor.

At the end of her baking fiesta, my siblings and I gather around the kitchen to clean the sticky bowls and dough-covered utensils clattered around. After our failed attempts to recreate her recipes and the, our love language to her is assisting with the cleanup process. Her love pours into each pastry, she makes toppings with a unique twist and flavorful cream puffs that tango on the tongue.
Over the years, my mother hand wrote a recipe book where she documented all her favorite methods, tips and tricks. She has memorized all of them though and keeps the book as treasured memorabilia of her hard work and skills. However, I have always felt that my mother has forgotten to document some of the most important things in her journal.

She has forgotten to document how she loves us unconditionally every day, how she cures our hearts but barely takes time to herself. My mother forgets that we cherish every moment we spend with her, and she holds our entire family together like the spine of her recipe book. Like the dough she kneads to perfection, she brings the neighborhood together with her wit and charism at her mini bakery. I hope that she is as kind to herself as she is to us when we need her cozy hugs in moments of uncertainty.”