How I Met My Angel on the Other Side
Love Taps and the Art of Curiosity — a lemon cake, a text from my dad, and a grandmother I never met.
I stood in my kitchen, tying my baker’s apron around my neck, in the mood to make my classic vanilla Bundt cake. Then, suddenly, a lemon scent floats by my nostrils. I immediately crave it, yearning for lemon cake instead. This is random.
I’d recently been obsessed with baking my usual two-layered vanilla and chocolate, but I was intrigued by the pull.
I reach for the lemon extract in my cabinet, then add fresh lemon zest to my vanilla cake batter. I taste it, wondering what else it needs? Guided to grab another lemon, hoping the freshly squeezed lemon juice does the trick. And it does. Mmm.
My eyes roll back before pouring the lemon cake batter into my Bundt pan, then placing it in the oven. Sixty minutes later, the same lemon aroma I craved an hour ago taps again. It’s ready.
After rounds of allowing my loved ones to try my lemon cake, I knew it had to be added to the dessert menu for my 30th birthday party.
My dad, who wasn’t part of the tasting rounds, tried a slice of lemon cake at the party, then texted me afterwards.
“Your lemon cake tastes just like the one my mother used to make.”
My dad’s mom, my paternal grandmother, passed away before I was born.
It’s been challenging navigating my curiosity around my lineage via my grieving father. I had many questions about what my paternal grandparents were like, as well as what my late aunt was like. There wasn’t anyone else I felt comfortable enough with to ask. I would pry with questions, and immediately could tell he’d rather not.
So, I stopped.
But in some magnetic, beautiful, aligned way, that text from my father filled the space between my wanting and knowing.
I’ve seen many beautiful pictures of my late grandmother, so I began by closing my eyes, visualizing her face, feeling her energy, imagining her in her kitchen. I wonder if baking gave her the same pleasure it gives me? Wondering if sunlight tiptoed around her kitchen, and if she smiled as it hit her face. Two fire signs, separated by time, drawn to the same warmth. Did she like to listen to 70’s and 80’s R&B while baking? Did she have a special apron? Did her cakes serve as little love notes to the ones she loved, too?
I smile at the thought. I smile at the feeling. Seeing her through me, seeing us connected.
I couldn’t help but think my curiosity toward baking, toward this lemon cake, was a love tap from her. A love tap from my late grandmother that I never met.
I’d always yearned for her presence, yearned to hear her voice, imagining what life would be like if she were still here.
And in the most beautiful way, this changed everything.
I think about the extra lemon I felt gravitated toward. The magnetism of the missing part of the recipe, that wasn’t yet passed down.
What if this was her way of communicating with the granddaughter she never met? The urge from both of us, reaching across the uncertainty of not knowing each other.
Her reminder that she feels me, in the same way that I feel her.
Her reminder that you can most definitely love someone, deeply, endlessly, even if you’ve never met.
An imaginary string that transcends time, life, and death, holding us together.
Following the random urge, trusting that it will lead me to peace, to pleasure, to clarity.
May I always ask what I need in this moment. May I always wonder what I’m being reminded of, what parts of myself I’m still yearning for, and what this moment means for all of me.
May I always be encouraged to follow the pull.
My younger self’s joy, or perhaps my ancestors’ pleasure, holding hands with my present self's wonder and my future self’s knowing.
My younger self reminding me, this still belongs to me.
My future self nudging me to look here.
Love taps from God, from my ancestors, from my future self, from my past self; all of them exist simultaneously, pointing at the same thing… ME.
To remind me.
To guide me.
The next time you have an urge, a craving, a desire to go deeper. I encourage you to follow it. You never know who or what is trying to get your attention.
In loving memory of the beautiful, magnetic Carolyn E. Watkins, my angel on the other side.
Carolyn E. Watkins
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