In my freezer today I found a bag of fudge. It’s been there for a few months. Normally it’s nothing to think about but today it was. It is fudge Grandma mailed to me and the family. My Grandma Stasiuk passed away yesterday. She was 90. I last saw her a month ago, she lives 1000 km’s away so I flew to see her. In the past month she had many, many visitors. She was “ready to go” as she told us, and we all were able to visit with her in the last days. Anyhow, about the fudge. For some years Grandma always made us fudge. She would say “it was for energy because you are working”. She made it for me, the girls and other relatives. Sometimes she would put it in our hands when we visited, sometimes it would show up in the mail. I wasn’t a big fan of the fudge and the calories it contained – but loved what it represented. It meant Grandma did something special just for us, and it meant as much to her as it did us. As she got older there were many things she could not do any longer, but she could still make fudge. So a few times of a year a parcel would show up and there it was. Fudge. More fudge. Truth be told sometimes we gave it to the staff at Jan’s office. I nibbled on it of course. We sent some to Catie in Montreal. (Unbeknownst to us, Catie already had her own fudge delivered!) It became something of inside family folklore. Jan and I and the daughters would often mention “Oh, more fudge!” And we would laugh. We would call Grandma and thank her and she would tell us how and why she makes it, and what it stands for. “Energy for you young people”. The fudge may have been a sweet treat, but it meant much more than that to all of us. It represented something made from my Grandma just for us, made with love. It represented an excuse to call her and thank her and hear from her and what was new in her life. For her it was a reason to connect with us, I guess. I’ll probably never eat fudge again without thinking of Grandma.
So this is my last bag of fudge. I’ll save some for the girls when they are home. We’ll enjoy every bite and remember what the fudge meant to us, and to Grandma.
I’ll never have fudge mailed to me again, but I’ll never forget how much Grandma meant to me from when I was a kid in grade school, to high school, to a married man, to a husband and Dad. Through all of that she was always there. I’ll sure miss that fudge.
Kevin Hilgers 