Chasing Loneliness Away – with cupcakes

I am blessed with many wonderful people in my life.  One such person is Hubs’ Aunt who is really a friend of his mom who we call Aunty. She is a delightfully energetic, off beat senior citizen.  At this stage of her life she is a widow and an orphan with no children.  She is prone to loneliness, so we have claimed her as our own.   She is very generous and always comes up with a good idea of something to do together and with my family.   She is also a reliable babysitter/companion for my 10 yo.  Both kids love her and are so happy when they come home and find that she’s here for supper.

Lately she has been a little bit down.  Her husband died in 1999, but she still misses him.  Her grief has been long and deep and sometimes takes a strong grip on her.  Luckily she knows when she’s down and she calls to tell us as was the case this weekend.  I had just the cure.

I was asked to help with a bake sale fundraiser and baking is not my thing, but it is Auntys.  She loves to bake.  So I invited her over for the day and we chatted and she baked and I decorated.  With busy hands we laughed as we went.  I had searched Pinterest for some decorating ideas and  at the end of the day we made two dozen cupcakes, two savory loaves and a mediocre version of chex mix [#pinterestfail].  More importantly, Aunty had a great day and when the kids came home they made it even better by telling her about their day and oooing and ahhing over our baking.

Sometimes its easy to take care of each other.  Aunty helped me do the baking and in doing so she spent the day and evening with our family and that chased away her loneliness.  She’s going to come over for supper every Tuesday, until the loneliness subsides.  We will set a place for her at our table until then.