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Orange Peel Candy
By Donna Flood
9 February 2009 · Food
Orange Peel Candy
The hospital room where my Spanish grandfather was
on his death bed was quiet and gloomy with only a soft, low
light. At sixteen I still was not ready to be comfortable with
this situation of having loved one to leave. Grand Papa was
unaware of my presence or, for that matter, neither did he seem to know
of his daughter being beside his bed.
Auntie was weeping quietly. Her long black
hair curled and fell over her face so that I could not see her cry and
she seemed not to want to disturb anyone either, so I did not make any
sound to interrupt. Instead, a notebook from my purse
served to occupy my loneliness. Even as a child, sketching
was just a part of my life. My grandfather on the bed was barely
visible as far as my being able to identify him in a drawing. His
coal black hair was all there was to tell something about him while his
daughter grieved for him.
The sketch was first made of the white painted,
iron, hospital bed. Crumpled sheets pulled up to his chin and my
auntâ??s figure standing with her hands over her face while she cried
came next. At the end of the bed I penciled in the shape of an angel
with wings covering the end of the bed.
My leaving the notebook on the dining room table
that seemed to catch all such items was not purposeful. Probably,
my sixteen years of age left me a bit careless. The next day my
aunt showed it to me and asked.
â??Did you do this sketch?â?
â??Yes, I did. I felt so sad and it seemed to me there was an angel there with us.â?
My aunt made no comment but quietly did tear the page from the notebook and kept it.
Probably fifty years later Mother and I were
clearing her things out after she had passed away. Stuck down in
between a small stash of papers was the drawing. She had kept it
for all those years. Somehow or another, I was not sad.
There seemed to be a comfort to having found it and to know it had
meant so much to her.
My Spanish grandfatherâ??s cooked Orange Peel Candy this way:
http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1719,128191-242194,00.html
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From the Electric Scotland Article Service (2008–2011). Restored from archived copies of the original pages.
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