Mama's Biscuit Pan

"Mom, do you want to keep this beat up old pan?" my eldest son asked me when we were packing up to move four years ago.

Why is it that some objects take you back to a place in your heart where you can smell, see, and feel what your mind has forgotten?

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"Time to wake up, sweetie," my mom crooned in my ear as she softly touched my shoulder.  I could smell the aroma of sizzling bacon coming from the kitchen.  Oh, please have some home-made biscuits too!

Mama's biscuits were the best!  She cooked them in an old, black biscuit pan that my grandma used.  Its surface shiny with age and wear.   When she took that pan out of the oven, my brothers and I clamored to our chairs at the table ready to devour those hot, steaming, buttery clouds!


My mama was not one to share her emotions, but her love for us was evident in those hot breakfast biscuits she made for us.  Now, as a mom myself, I realize the hard work and devotion to family it took to get up so early and cook every morning for my dad, my three brothers, and me and then go to her job and work a full day.

I lovingly took that old pan from my son cradling it against my chest as if it were made of the most delicate, fragile spun glass. "Come here, boys, I want to tell you a story about your Grandma Jean."