For many months now, I have wanted to write about my father.

I’ve wanted to write about how he forgets the names of my children at times. He calls my daughter by my name, and he calls Oliver by my brother’s name.  He doesn’t do this always, but just enough that it gets my attention. I wanted to write about how my father, an avid reader and accumulator of knowledge, stopped reading at least a year ago, or perhaps longer. He has my mother buy books for him, but they sit, untouched, on the table next to his recliner. I wanted to write about how he can no longer order from a restaurant menu without help. Instead, he just orders the same as my mother, probably because it’s easier for him that way.

I never wrote about these things, though, because he was still trying to live a normal life. What if his friends new? What if his business clients found out? But, of course, his business is dead, having essentially died the day this happened, two years ago. And I’m nearly certain his friends knew, in the way that good friends often know when something is wrong.

Last weekend, I finally shared a piece of the story. I wrote about the difficult choice of placing my dad in a nursing home, and I wrote it simply because I had to. I was at a breaking point.

The comments you wrote on that post, the messages you sent through Twitter or Facebook, the emails you wrote to me — I have read, and reread, every single one. I am grateful to all of you who reached out to me. Every comment or message felt like a hug, a comforting squeeze of my hand. Thank you for that.

I perched on the edge of my seat next to my father’s bed, ready to quickly move out of the way for the next nurse or patient care assistant that needed to get where I was. So far there had been three, and each time, I stood and moved to the other side of the bed, or generally just got out of the way. I felt out of place, in the way.

The first was a stern-faced woman, her hair pulled back in a tight bun and wearing turquoise scrubs. She brought my father a lunch tray – green beans, cornbread, macaroni and cheese, and a cup of brown tea with no ice – and, later, she checked his blood pressure and noted his vitals on a scrap of paper. She didn’t smile. The second and third wore red scrubs. They worked as a team to help my father stand, wobbly and listing to the right. With their assistance, he pivoted with shuffling steps and plopped into the chair that was also a digital scale. After getting his weight, they changed his gown. The sweat-soaked one he was wearing was removed, and almost simultaneously, a clean, pale-blue gown was draped over him, then tied in the back.

He was charming with each of them, even the one who would not smile. He joked that his weight was due to his incredible muscle strength (it’s not). He asked one if she was married (she isn’t). He flirted, and they humored him or ignored him, whichever was most appropriate.

But now we were alone. I sat in the chair beside his bed, holding his right hand for some time, letting go when it got too damp, holding it again. He watched the activity outside his door — other residents rolling by in their wheelchairs, nursing home staff in their colored scrubs pushing medication carts or bins of linens. And we talked.

“Why am I here?” he asked.

I did my best to answer that question, and my chest tightened with each word I spoke. My heart hurt.

You’re here because Mom can’t take care of you alone anymore, because none of us can. You’re here because you get confused, and when you get confused, you often get angry or mean. It’s too much for any of us. You’re here because we need help, and because this is for the best. You’re here because you need full care, more than we can safely do without some support. You’re here because Mom needs a break, and if she doesn’t get a break, she’ll die.

My father has dementia, and until now, we’ve mostly kept it quiet.

My father has dementia, and even though it is breaking our hearts, we made the decision to put him in a nursing home this weekend. Everything came so suddenly, after an evening of crisis. None of us were ready for it. But then again, I’m not sure we ever would be ready. I hope this current placement is temporary, a bandage, until we can figure out a long-term solution. I fear that it will become permanent.

I came home and baked yesterday. I baked a key lime cheesecake, one of Sam’s favorites. I grated limes, measured juice, whisked lime curd, blended cream cheese and sugar. The routine of the process calmed my mind as the sweet aromas of cheesecake filled the house.

The baking helped for a time. It helped until today, when Dad told me he wanted to go home, told me he wanted to die if he couldn’t.

Back in August 2011, I traveled to New Orleans for a food blogging conference. Shortly after arriving at the hotel, I met up with Jamie from Life’s a Feast, and we went on an adventure into an area of New Orleans that I was unfamiliar with. We were hunting a bakery  on Magazine Street, Sucré, and specifically, the delicate macarons made by Sucré’s executive pastry chef, Tariq Hanna.

Jamie knows all about macarons, and if you search her blog for “macaron”, you’ll find all sorts of recipes for them. I knew very little about macarons – including how to pronounce the word – until that trip to New Orleans, and to Sucré in particular. I bought an assortment of Sucré macarons that day, planning to take them home to my family. And I did take home some, but not as many as I had intended. Sucré’s macarons were almost too pretty to eat. Almost. In my hotel room later that day, I nibbled on one, sampled another,  and I was hooked.

And now you have a chance to try them, too.

Sucré is going to send one of you, the winner of the giveaway, a box of their assorted signature macarons.

I love the idea of one of my readers getting a box of these colorful cookies delivered to their front door. But as I was thinking of doing this giveaway — and you know that giveaways are a rare occurrence around here — I realized I’d like to send something else along with the macarons.

I’d like to inspire a baker out there.

The reward of a chocolate chip cookie fresh out of the oven or a wedge of tangy citrus tart is just a small – but tasty! – part of why I bake. The primary reason I bake is because I am comforted by the process, by the mind-centering rhythm of gathering ingredients, mixing together flour and sugar and eggs, rolling pie dough or pressing a shortbread crust into a tart pan. For 30 minutes or an hour, or hopefully longer, I’m a chemist, creating a multitude of chemical reactions that result in something beautiful, something that makes people smile.

In addition to the macarons from Sucré, the winner of the giveaway will receive (at my expense) these two cookbooks:

I don’t own the first of these two books, Gesine Bullock-Prado’s Bake It Like You Mean It: Gorgeous Cakes from Inside Out, but it’s on my baking cookbooks wish list. I do have the second of the two, Thomas Keller’s and Sebastien Rouxel’s Bouchon Bakery. That cookbook, oversized and glossy, is simply stunning. The photography is gorgeous and the recipes are detail-oriented and easy to follow.

So, to recap — one lucky reader will receive a 15-piece box of assorted signature macarons, courtesy of Sucré, and both of the cookbooks above, Bake It Like You Mean It and Bouchon Bakery, courtesy of me. How do you enter? Well, keep reading. And good luck!

~ the giveaway ~

to enter:

It’s very simple to enter — no hoops to jump through.  Just leave me a comment below answering this: Why do you bake or cook? What is it that draws you to the kitchen?

the fine print:

I’ll close comments on Sunday, March 17, 2013  at 12 noon EST, and I’ll randomly select one winner from the comments. Please, only one comment per person, and you must live in the continental United States to win the giveaway. For Sucré’s shipping purposes, you must be able to provide a physical address, not just a post office box number.

 

** 3/17/2013 UPDATE **

We have a winner! According to the random number generator, the lucky person is:

Congratulations, Suzanne W. I’ll be getting in touch with you very soon. Happy baking!