We’re making cookies. Nothing particularly fancy. Butter cookies (with vegan butter– stupid dairy intolerance) from a cookie monster cookbook my mom and I were given when I was little. My mom and I made these cookies for Halloween and decorated them like pumpkins. At Valentine’s Day, they were hearts. At Christmas, we hauled out all the old irons and made Norwegian cookies. I haven’t had the guts to try them without my mom yet.

My son and I will make the dough, chill it, and go for a walk. We’ll roll out cookies. He’ll get bored if history serves, so I’ll finish, and we’ll put them in the over. He loves colored sugar, so I have plenty on hand.

When I bake cookies with him, we hold my mother’s hand. Not literally. She died in 2008, but we hold it nonetheless. We talk about her. He gives me the greatest gift by asking about her and wondering what she was like, and I walk through my memories with him and tell him our stories.

The cookies are quiet good, but the community around them is phenomenal.