Memories... in Me

Isn’t it odd how our brain remembers things?

Bear with me on this one, cause I feel like it’s gonna be a bunch of backstory and I’m probably going to move in circles more than once…

I don’t like lemon in desserts.
I never have.
Don’t like lemon meringue pie, don’t like lemon bars, just plain don’t like lemon in desserts.

With one exception…

My Nanna (my great-grandmother) used to make “lemon surprise”. I loved it. I distinctly remember that a BUNCH of my family HATED it. But Nanna made it for every holiday, and every family gathering. So everyone always got a serving and they “had” to eat it cause nobody wanted to upset Nanna. So my Mom and I would hide in a corner and eat everyone’s serving plus our own.
We’d scarf down ours and then wait until people came to us. I’d hand my empty dish to someone in exchange for their full one, which went to the next person (empty) in exchange for their full one.
Good Lord, the amount of “lemon surprise” I must’ve consumed…
The amount of calories…

My Nanna passed in 2000.
I was freshly 13.
I didn’t know what was important in life.

My Mom got a recipe from someone for lemon surprise and she thought it sounded right. So she made it a few years ago.
Except, it wasn’t right.
Not even close.

I couldn’t describe “lemon surprise” to you. I don’t remember the color, or the consistency, and aside from the obvious lemon, I couldn’t tell you what the hell was in it.
But this… thing… my Mom made?
Was NOT lemon surprise. It was very… orange-colored (ick) and it was just wrong. All wrong.

Sometime in March, my Mom randomly mentioned lemon surprise.
I said “I can’t believe that NOBODY in the family has the recipe…”
She replied with “Your Auntie Keri does.”

A lot of my family is estranged since Nanna passed. Auntie Keri is my mother’s sister, that she grew up with. They don’t speak. We also don’t speak to my mother’s mother. I don’t speak to Auntie Keri, but every year on my birthday, she sends me a Facebook message wishing me a happy birthday and then 15 days later, I return the favor by wishing her a happy birthday. That’s literally been our only communication for the past… probably ten years.

I told my Mom I’d ask her for the recipe on my birthday.
Keri actually sent it to me.
So my Mom made “lemon surprise” tonight.

I haven’t had it in over twenty years.
One bite, and I was immediately taken back.
This recipe was right.
This was my Nanna’s lemon surprise.
This was EXACTLY how I’d forgotten I remembered it.

And sitting at my Mom’s kitchen table, I was fighting back tears…

All of a sudden, I remembered so many things about my Nanna…
I remembered her deep, raspy, thickly Boston voice, as if she was sitting beside me.
I remembered sitting on her lap and listening to her tell me stories of my Mom as a kid.
I remembered her warm, tight, almost-suffocating hugs.
I remembered how through the smell of cigarettes, the scent of her white Ivory soap was barely there.
I remembered her begging me to let her teach me how to crochet, and I thought it was dumb and boring.

I miss her so much…
I miss the way our family was before we lost her…
I miss splitting holidays between Pennsylvania and Massachusetts…
I miss the long-ass road trip to MA with my Mom up 81 & 95…
I miss feeling like I had a whole horde of people to fall back on…
I miss who my grandmother used to be, and I hate that I really don’t like the person she is now…

Isn’t it crazy?
Two bites of an old dessert, and all of that came flooding back to me.

And isn’t it crazy how much people change over time?

I miss my Nanna.
I missed “lemon surprise”.

And, damnit… I’m not going to cry at work.

I REALLY MISSED “LEMON SURPRISE”.

Which, by the way, I only like because it’s BARELY “lemon-y” and has enough sweetness to cut out the bitter

Last updated May 07, 2020