Donuts

We got a most delicious surprise in the mail the other day. Donuts arrived from Auntie Laura! What a treat to have donuts in our mailbox!

These weren't just any donuts. These were made by my sister with the same recipe we grew up eating.

Emma's donuts these were, and the minute I opened the bag, I could smell Papa's house.

The coffee smell was missing. I contemplated brewing some just to get the full effect, but considering I am not sure where the coffee-maker was put four years ago when we moved here nor am I sure that there are even coffee grounds existing in this house....I savored the donut smell itself with tears in my eyes.

Obviously someone else was savoring the flavor fairly quickly, but I ate mine slowly, my mind drifting back to the near-overabundance of Emma's donuts in my childhood, an overabundance that, back then, seemed as if it would always be around.

Then another little someone woke up from her nap and inquired what the fuss was about.


Maybe it was that her sister was running in circles saying "Donut! Donuts! I love donuts!" and telling her how "They smell just like Papa's house!"....Whatever the case, Sunny dove right into her own donut.

I think hers disappeared the quickest.

My childhood donut days are long since gone, only existing as memories of days where Laura and I looked like the faces seen here, days where we consumed the donuts, and Emma, and possibly Great Aunt Myrtle, as well, supplied them...hence, the tears with these donuts.

I tell these Mice about their great-grandpas; I told them that day about the smell of donuts and coffee, about a time and place where people had an afternoon "lunch" and actually took time to stop in and visit each other, to sit around enjoying coffee and a donut. But I can't show them. They can't actually smell that time and see it and taste it and live it. So we do the best we can, and we eat Emma's Donuts By Laura; we take an afternoon snack break; and we sit and visit.