Pick Me Up: a Story of Losing and Love in Isolation, with Honey Snack Cake

Trigger warnings: loss, pregnancy loss, cancer, COVID, hospice, etc. etc.

Back in August, right before school started, my mother was diagnosed with stage 3 esophageal cancer. They caught it early enough, the doctor assured us, and we agreed on a chemo-surgery-chemo sandwich, depending on how things might go. 

My mother, always a cheerful and compliant patient (through back surgery, knee surgeries, bunion surgeries, and more hospital visits than I can count) embarked on the journey with her Rollator, mostly chauffered by my brother (who has been her caretaker these 20 years since my father died), sometimes chauffered by me. The last scan before surgery came back good: no evidence of the mass. She prepared for surgery to remove any last vestiges of the cancer.

And then, the week before it was supposed to happen, found herself in back pain again, so weak she couldn't leave her bed. She fell, twice, and was taken to the hospital. They encouraged her to eat, discussed rehab to get her back in shape for surgery. I went to visit on Saturday with my daughter, and she looked like she was returning to baby-hood. It didn't look good, worse than I'd seen her in a while.

Saturday night my daughter had friends sleep over for her birthday. And on Sunday morning, I woke up feeling miserable, and tested positive for COVID.

We called the parents to pick up their kids. My daughter cried, claiming her friends would hate her now, it was such a sad birthday. I began isolation in our bedroom, thinking good lord, now I've exposed not just my daughter and her friends but my own already-immunocompromised mother and the entire freaking hospital to COVID (I was masked of course, but we know that's not 100% perfect).

Sunday night my brother called. The cancer had in fact spread, and my mother was dying. It didn't even matter that I'd exposed her to COVID. She would return to her apartment this week for hospice care.

So here I was, stuck in isolation, quite ill with this stupid virus, hacking up a lung, while my brother was stuck moving my mother to hospice alone, coordinating nurses and aides, ordering a hospital bed, doing logistics.

I called my mother every day. Twice a day. It was all I could do. She has never figured out video calling (she is obstinate about technology, despite her compliance in all other ways), so I'd talk briefly with her until she was tired, telling her when she sounded more or less loopy and trying to entertain her with thoughts of things other than death, encouraging her to drink water, to eat so she could stick around long enough for me to see her.

By Wednesday, the day of her move, I felt so helpless and desperate I didn't know what to do with myself. My brother said I should start thinking about when I was going to come up. He said she wasn't doing much to sustain herself. What should I do? I asked him. I'm COVID positive. I'm not just a little symptomatic; I'm actually really, really sick. The urgent care put me on Paxlovid and walking felt challenging. I just wanted to sleep. I wouldn't trust myself to drive down the street right now, even if the other stars aligned. What should I do?

Of course, it's February. The month my father died, the month of my pregnancy losses. The irony of all of this is not lost on me. I determined that if I could do nothing else, I would get her to eat.

So I did what any other self-respecting human stuck in isolation while their mother is dying in hospice would do: I ordered GrubHub.

Tiramisu, I decided, was something she could eat. Soft, sweet but not sickly, loaded with calories. She mooned over an icee she'd had in the hospital; this would be better. I did the best I could with directions to her apartment in the senior living facility, and then realized the driver would never be able to figure out how to get in. I texted him my life story, weeping, telling him he was bringing tiramisu to my mother, dying in hospice, because I couldn't be there, because I was stuck in isolation with COVID. I told him he was not just delivering food, but delivering a blessing. He texted back: "don't worry I will do the best."

As I watched the little GrubHub car approach her place on my phone app, I texted him, asked him if he needed any help getting in. "Nope," he replied cheerfully. "I'm in!"

I cried. I thanked him profusely. I gave him the biggest tip he'd probably ever gotten from a single small delivery. He told me I was kind, that it was his job. I told him he was the kind one, that I was so very grateful.

My brother reported she ate half of it, more than she'd eaten of anything else in days.

At this writing, my mother is still alive. I don't know how many more days she will be on this earth. Maybe she is waiting until the 20 year anniversary of my father's death on the 19th to make this shitty month's irony absolutely complete. But I will always be grateful to the GrubHub driver, who helped me to feel a little less helpless in my COVID prison, whose tiramisu was a literal "pick me up" when I am coming to terms with another loss.

I've always included a recipe in my posts. Maybe it's a little weird to do that now, but this is something alone the lines of what my husband left as breakfast outside my door this morning, which he made last night. Things are going OK down there without me, I guess, regardless of the fact the Universe is completely shitting on me in other ways.

Honey Snacking Cake

3/4 c. runny honey

1/4 cup light brown sugar

1 large egg

1/2 c. canola oil

1/2 c. buttermilk, well shaken

1 t. vanilla extract

1/2 t. ground cinnamon

3/4 t. kosher salt

1 1/4 c. all-purpose flour

1 1/2 t. baking powder

1/4 t. baking soda

1/2 c.  sliced almonds

Place a rack in the center of oven. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray and 8-inch square pan with nonstick cooking spray. Set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk honey, brown sugar, egg, oil, buttermilk, vanilla, cinnamon and salt until smooth.

Add the flour, baking powder and soda and whisk until well combined.

Pour the batter into your prepared pan, tapping the pan lightly on the counter to release any air bubbles. Smooth the top with an offset spatula. Sprinkle the almonds on top, if desired.

Bake until the cake is puffy and lightly golden, and a tester inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean, about 25-35 minutes. Cool the pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature. Will keep well wrapped at room temp for up to three days.

Notes (from Yossi's cookbook Snacking Cakes)

You could double the ingredients, skip the almond sprinkle and bake this in a 15-cup bundt pan, about 40-50 minutes. Let it cool in the pan for 10 minutes and then invert it onto a wire rack to cool completely. You could also use a 9x5x3-inch loaf pan, use only 1/4-cup of the sliced almonds for the topping and bake until a skewer inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean and the loaf is puffed and lightly golden brown, about 35-45 minutes. You could also bake it in a 9-inch round pan until a skewer inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean and the loaf is puffed and lightly golden brown, about 30-40 minutes.