Grieve Her Mum Through Cooking

Grief and mourning can be expressed in many ways. 【小题1】. She found comfort through cooking her mother’s recipes in a planner and in turn, learned about her mother. Her attitude to life was mirrored in her cooking.

Along with the love of food and family, her mother, and her grandmother before her, had passed down a carved wooden spoon. It was given from one to the next. 【小题2】. She inherited this spoon and the passion her mother had.

After her mother’s death, Debbie also found the planner containing these detailed dinner party plans and recipes. Her mother was not gone. 【小题3】. And Debbie has learned a lot about her since she began cooking her food.

【小题4】. In trying to make out her mother’s notes, Debbie has bonded again with her father in shared grief and understanding. Asking Dad who is who, what is what and learning and understanding, Debbie has been able to see a new side of her mother.

Everything Debbie is cooking is inherited, as is the joy and sense of achievement she feels. When she began cooking with her mother as a kid, she was in charge of turning the toast, to stop it catching. Now she is holding the spoon, adding the spices and still looking up from the stove to her mum. 【小题5】.

A young man once went into town and bought himself a pair of trousers. When he got home, he went upstairs to his bedroom and put them on. He found that they were about two inches (英寸) too long.

He went downstairs to the kitchen. His mother and two sisters were washing up the tea things there. “The new trousers are too long,” he said. “They need shortening by about two inches. Could one of you do it for me, please?” His mother and sisters were busy and none of them said anything.

But as soon as his mother had finished washing up, she went quietly upstairs to her son’s bedroom and shortened the trousers by two inches. She came downstairs without saying anything to her daughters.

Later on, after supper, the elder sister remembered her brother’s trousers. She was a kind-hearted girl, so she went quietly upstairs without saying anything to anyone, and shortened the trousers by two inches.

The younger sister went to the cinema, but when she came home, she, too, remembered her brother’s trousers. So she ran upstairs and did as her mother and sister had done.

You can imagine the look on the young man’s face when he put the trousers on the next morning.

You might assume that being the apple of your mother’s eye could only be a good thing. But adults who believe they are their mother’s favourite child are at an increased risk of depression, according to a study.

Researchers think that being the target of sibling (兄弟姐妹) competition and feeling responsible towards their parents both take their toll on the preferred child. “There is a cost for those who realize they are the closest emotionally to their mothers, and these children report higher depressive symptoms,” said Professor Jill Suitor from Purdue University in Indiana, who led the study. “This cost comes from higher sibling tension experienced by adult children who are favoured for emotional closeness, or the greater feelings of responsibility for the emotional care of their older mothers,” added Dr. Megan Gilligan from Iowa State University, who also worked on the research.

The researchers used data collected from 725 adult children with an average age of 49, analysing levels of emotional closeness, conflict, pride and disappointment.

The researchers said that earlier studies had found that those who were closer to their mothers experienced less closeness with their siblings. Further, tension with siblings has been found to be especially high when adult children are both favoured and provide care for their mothers—a context that is particularly common when mothers are in their late 70s and 80s, as is the case in the present study.

Though few mothers or fathers would admit that they have a favourite son or daughter, studies have suggested they often do. One such piece of research, which was carried out by the University of California in 2005, found that 65 percent of mothers and 70 percent of fathers showed a preference for one of their children over their siblings. Also, a study carried out by Professor Suitor and Dr. Gilligan found that mothers tended to favour an adult child who they thought to be similar to them, in terms of values and beliefs.

Therefore, how we learn to love and be loved by people, how accepted we feel, how easy we find it to relate to others and expect them to relate to us can often connects with our upbringing.