Cake

So last night I decided to make dessert. Sometimes you just want something sweet, plus I find baking very soothing for some reason.
Anyway, last year my extended family put together this cookbook of all the family recipes for generations back and I was thumbing through it while we watched tv. I came across this recipe for chocolate cake that was my grandpa's favorite. Its chocolate mayonnaise cake (the mayonnaise replaces the butter/oil and egg). So I decided to make it. Well, when it was done and I opened the oven this smell wafted out that was obviously the cake, but to me it smelled like more than that. It smelled like my grandma's house, it smelled like grandpa, it was this overwhelmingly familiar, comforting take-you-back kind of smell. I wanted to cry, but all I could do was laugh - both at myself for wanting to cry over a cake and for all the memories that were flooding back. Over the fact that for the first time something that reminded me of my grandpa didn't immediately send me into fits of sobs and tears and pain, but made me smile.
Its amazing how something can be so heart-wrenchingly sad and so joyfully happy at the same time.