Taste is Memory

It cannot have been more than half a day before my mother succumbed to the cancer that was ravaging her body that it happened.

‘Maria,’ she whispered weakly and motioned with her skeletal hand to the sponge by her bed. I drowned it in the water jug and brought it to her lips for her to drink from.

As she slurped awkwardly at the sponge, a tingling, like pins and needles moved up through my body and into my skull from the place her fingers wrapped lightly around my wrist.

Somehow I knew that if she could have had anything in the world to eat at that moment, it would have been her Aunt Sarah’s homemade fudge. Something she had devoured with glee as a child, and had not tasted since Sarah herself had died many years ago, and the recipe along with her.

I willed the water to taste of that fudge and to fill my mother’s mouth with the same heavenly sweetness and crumbly texture that I experienced through her. I willed it into existence with everything I had.

My mother began to drink in earnest, her eyes closing in childish wonder, and I knew she could taste it. She never questioned it, but always asked for me when she wished for water after that. It was a small but beautiful pleasure for a woman destined for the grave. It brought her a peace that everyone around her in her final moments could feel.

Love gave me power. I will never save the world with this power but I learned that taste is memory.

I became a Hospice Nurse, and in the twilight of a person’s life, I know what they need to taste, what memory of their life will bring them comfort, and I bring them peace.