I have a little black book that’s filled with liaisons between the heart and palate. Only 4” x 6” it was given to me by my father before my first speech meet. I was sixteen and performing Renaissance by Edna St. Vincent Millay. As he gave it to me, I can still hear and see him say, “You can use this, but I want it back when you’re finished.”
Figuratively, I guess I never finished because I still have the handy little vinyl notebook, and it still has the original typed copy of the poem that qualified me for the State Speech Meet that year, but its uses have been transformed through the years. It has become the residing place of all those special recipes from friends and family. Many of them are called after the person who gave them to me such as Sophie’s Vegetable Dip, Mom’s Famous Yeast Rolls, and, of course, Rosalyn’s Resurrection Chocolate.
My sister Rosalyn also has multiple sclerosis, and in the last five years since the diagnosis has consistently lost more use of her motor skills. MS, as it is familiarly known, attacks the myelin sheath that surrounds the nerve paths to and from the brain. When the sheath is eaten through, the nerve shorts out and no longer carries the messages from the brain to other parts of the body.
My sister Rosalyn is beautiful. Let me rephrase that. I have two sisters, and both of them are exquisitely beautiful. Both are younger than I, and both live far from Colorado. So the only time we get together is during holiday travels and special celebrations.
Rosalyn, besides being beautiful, is also fiercely independent. Although she must use a three-wheeled cart to carry her throughout the grade school where she works as a school secretary and must go to the mall in a wheel-chair, and must use a walker to walk, she refuses to give up the independence of going when she can go and doing when she can do. Her response is always, “Let me do it now; there may come a time when I can’t do it for myself.” — which brings me back to the Resurrection Chocolate.
When we arrived in southern Oklahoma at her home, she had made us this luscious dessert. Pecans are abundant in the neighborhood, and my nephew had harvested them from the ground. Rosalyn had taken them to the pecan crackers to make them easy to shell, and we had a grocery bag full as one of our Christmas presents under the tree.
She had just finished putting the filling on the pecan crust and slowly lowered herself back into her wheelchair with a sigh. As she lifted her leg onto the footrest, I noticed that her leg muscles began to twitch uncontrollably. Her only comment was, “I stood too long.”
Truly, dessert that night was a labor of love. So as I turn the pages of that old, vinyl notebook, I relive each recipe in mind and heart. Here is a picture of my father, handing me a plain black folder that has become a record of memory; a picture of Thanksgiving bounty with the aroma of Mom’s yeast rolls surrounding the family of my childhood; a picture of my sister’s lovely smile as she says, “Let me do it while I can.”
Resurrection is a good word—full of hope, expectation, rejoicing. Yes, I think I’ll name it Rosalyn’s Resurrection Chocolate—an appropriate name for a labor of love. After all, the other Resurrection was also the result of a labor of love.
Rosalyn’s Resurrection Chocolate
Ingredients:
- ½ cup butter
- 1 cup chopped pecans
- 1 cup flour
- 8 oz cream cheese
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 small 1 oz package chocolate pudding
- 3 cups cool whip
Directions:
- Mix butter, pecans and flour. Press into a 9×12 baking pan and bake at 350 degrees until set.
- Cream the powdered sugar and cream cheese together and spread over cooled crust.
- Mix pudding according to package directions and add cool whip to pudding.
- Spread pudding mixture over crust and cream cheese.
- Sprinkle with additional chopped pecans.
Cool. Eat and Enjoy!
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