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Anne took a tentative bite and chewed with her mouth partly open, the way you do when something is too hot or if you are trying to really taste something. She sighed deeply before her lip started to quiver.  Unable to help it she burst into tears, building until she was sobbing uncontrollably. Normally a failed baking attempt wouldn’t invoke such an emotional response but this wasn’t just any recipe. This one had been passed down through several generations.

Anne thought back to when she was a child and could smell her moms baking wafting from the kitchen of their modest country home. She recalled how delicious these cookies were, still hot out of the pan.

She sniffled and looked down at the old, greasy faded sheet of paper that she had found among her moms things. The recipe was handwritten in pen and it was a fairly easy recipe, except for one line that read “a dash of the secret ingredient”.

Anne sighed and wished she had paid attention while her mother was baking. She didn’t know what the secret ingrediant was but it was the difference between “ok” cookies and the delicious ones she remembered as a child.

Her thoughts were broken by her daughter Mary walked into the house, home from school “Do I smell COOKIES??”

Anne hoped her crying wasn’t obvious, “Sure do kiddo – help yourself but they didn’t turn out very good”

Anne watched as Mary took a tentative bite before her eyes widened, “These are AMAZING!!” Mary exclaimed.

Anne smiled, sure her daughter was just saying that to be nice.

“Thanks sweetie. They were my favourite growing up, but the recipe calls for a secret ingredient and I never found out what that ingredient was before mom – I mean grandma – passed away”

Mary caught a bit of the sorrow in her moms eyes.

“Well I wouldn’t worry about it, these are the best cookies ever just the way they are!”

Anne smiled and started cleaning up, tucking the worn recipe card back into the box it was kept safe in.

The moment, and the recipe card, wouldn’t be thought of again for many years.

Anne had been sick for awhile and Mary was doing her best to take care of her. After several treatments and many long hospital stays, the time had come for Anne to be moved into palliative care for her final days.

After one of her daily visits Mary found herself bumbling around her mothers kitchen, trying to keep herself and her mind busy. When she stumbled across the old box of favourite recipes she paused before peering inside. The moment she saw that faded, worn card she remembered that she hadn’t had those cookies since she had been a little girl. The hand scrawled words “secret ingredient” didn’t slow her down as she whisked, kneeded, mixed and baked her way through the instructions, happy for the distraction.

The next morning she snuck some of the family cookies into Anne’s room. Her moms eyes were dim, but sparkled slightly when she smelled the treats.

“Oh sweetie you shouldn’t have”, she said weakly.

Mary helped her mom steady her hand to shakily take a bite.

Anne smiled and said “You did it! They taste exactly like I remember as a child! What was the secret ingredient?”

Mary smiled, her eyes tearing over, “It’s love, mom. The secret ingredient is love. That’s why your cookies were just as delicious to me as grandma’s were to you.”

Anne squeezed Mary’s hand, “You always were so smart. I’m proud of you my dear.”

Mary waited until her mother fell asleep before taking the partially eaten cookie from her tray and putting it on the bedside table.

While her daughter sat watching, Anne quietly let out one final rough breath and just like that, she was gone. Mary felt the tears start to roll down her cheeks as she clasped her moms frail hand in hers. Just then, Mary felt a tiny kick inside of her growing belly. “I wish you could have stayed long enough to meet your grandbaby, mom. It’s a girl. Her name will be Anne. And she is going to bake cookies.”

Random thought…
Let’s imagine that I start making moonshine in my garage. Now of course there are laws in place and it is against federal law to distill hard alcohol (even for personal consumption) without a license. This prohibits me from legally making moonshine, but it really isn’t that difficult to do. All of the ingredients are readily accessible, it just takes some inexpensive equipment and a little know how and boom, the moonshine is flowing. I’m not allowed to legally sell it either obviously, but I soon discover that there are people who love my moonshine. In fact the demand is higher than I anticipated so I decide to quietly start selling my precious blend for cash. Hey, I’m just giving the people what they want, and if I make a few bucks in the process I’m helping the economy! Soon things are going great and my secret business is booming. My customers all know to keep quiet and we can continue our relationship forever. They all quickly grow to trust my discretion and expertise. One day I decide my moonshine would taste better with a little cyanide in it. My clients still trust me of course so they continue to drink my product. Suddenly my customers are turning up dead by the hundreds, or even thousands. In fact, cyanide laced moonshine quickly becomes the number one cause of death in males aged 19 – 39. I don’t care because I’m making a fortune, so I continue producing and selling my mixture.
While I am careful, this is a risky business and one day I slip up; the police finally catch me. I am caught red handed with a bag full of cash and a trunk load of cyanide poisoned moonshine. Upon my arrest I would expect to have some serious mental health assessments done. What kind of a madman would purposely poison his clients, or anyone for that matter? Assuming I was found mentally fit to stand trial I would then be stuffed in a jail cell for my remaining years. I would most likely make international news in fact. Every news department in the world would carry the story of the mad Canadian who was poisoning people with cyanide.

Now replace the words “cyanide laced moonshine” with “fentanyl laced drugs” in this tale and try to figure out why we dont lock up drug dealers and throw away the key?

How he loved this time of year. He enjoyed watching all of the seasons come and go, but this one had always been his favourite. The colourful lights strung across storefronts, the Christmas music playing softly, the friendly smiles from strangers. Tonight was also the official City Light-up Ceremony so there was more activity than usual downtown. The giant Christmas tree stood proudly, covered with decorations, its bright lights visible from blocks away. Kids were running around squealing with glee, both hands full of candy canes and hot chocolate, not caring that it spilled as they slid and played in the snow covered square. It wouldn’t be long until the parents would be shooing these children off to bed, telling them they must fall asleep quickly for Santa to come. His thoughts harkened back to his own childhood, remembering the excitement of this magical season; the treats, the toys, the goodwill, and of course the family and friends. Like most children, the toys had been his favourite part of the holidays but as he grew older he realized that the family gatherings were what really counted. He fondly recalled the smell of turkey throughout the house as the family dinner was prepared. He would warm his hands by the stove, cheeks red from an adventurous afternoon out in the snow with his brothers. They always knew it was time to come in when the sun had set and the brightly coloured Christmas lights their dad had hung from the eaves were the only thing left to light their way through the snow. He started to wonder what his brothers were up to tonight, wondered if they were somewhere in the crowd with their own children now… but he quickly brushed those thoughts aside. Thoughts like that only brought pain and he was in too good of a mood tonight. Besides, this festive season would end soon enough, the cold darkness of January would set in and people would go back to staring at their shoes to avoid eye contact as they walked past him. He breathed a lonely sigh as he sat down on his ragged cardboard matt in the alley that he called home. He pulled his knees to his chest and hunched his collar up a little higher over his bare neck; it was going to be another long, cold night on the street. “Merry Christmas” he mumbled to himself.