Moving on

Today is the stonesetting for my sister. It is just over a year since she died of secondary breast cancer, and today the tombstone, which was laid on her grave just a few days ago, will be consecrated. Really it is an excuse for a memorial service, and the year marks a point at which the bereaved should probably begin to think about moving on. I am one of the bereaved, and my response to this milestone is to bake up a storm. A tarte au chocolat. Chocolate crunch, made of honey, oats, Rice Krispies, coconut, cocoa powder, organic milk chocolate, honey and sunflower oil. Soda bread. And, umm, I dunno, other stuff. I'll just keep going until it's time to put on my purple outfit and go and commemorate my sister's life, consumed by cancer that killed her when it pursued its inexorable, unstoppable, toxic path from her breast to her liver, taking in her lungs, her ribs, her arms and her spine on its malignant route.  Baking might seem like a weird response to the memories of such horror (and by the way,while I totally agree with the view of Jennifer Saunders that cancer happens to loads of people and we should all get on with it, I also beg to differ on the grounds that she was lucky enough to have a survivable strain. I did too, when I was treated for thyroid cancer 5 years ago, and I don't make a song and dance out of it. I had it. It was treated. It's gone. It's unlikely to come back. End of. When you lose someone to cancer, though, the helpless process that takes hold is an hourly, living nightmare that changes your life. It is a horror for the suffering and for those who love them. So, baking.  Why? It is a therapeutic process like no other. And as a keen gardener, pianist, linguist and general cook, I think I would know. It demands concentration and creativity. It produces an outcome that is deeply satisfying. it looks beautiful. It has comfort written all over it. I bake to erase some of that nightmare quality. And I think I have to do this. Because after the stonesetting is over, and the last cup of tea has been drunk by the friends who will have joined us, I will have to find a place for all this pain so I can move on, and remember my sister in the shape of all the wonderful things she did and all the wonderful qualities that defined her (including her passion for purple, hence the dress). And right now that pain is just too, well, painful, to put away. It needs reshaping. It needs reducing. It needs rebalancing. My sister loved to bake. She was an extraordinary creator of Occasion Cakes. When I bake, my memories of her pain are overlaid by memories of her passion. So baking is part of my process of moving on.