I came home from a busy day working as an RN, and was turning on the oven to preheat even as I was putting away my nursing bag and taking off my shoes.

I grabbed the first thing a saw – a bunch of quickly deteriorating bananas. I methodically made 2 loaves of banana bread.

My husbands said we’ve got to eat dinner, why are you doing this now?

At the moment, I honestly didn’t have an answer that made sense. I said the bananas were overripe.

They’d be that way for hours. Another day, even.

I needed to comfort myself, though. Even though I knew I wasn’t going to eat but a small test slice, I was preparing this gift of sweet breads for my family and coworkers.

As I took a breath when the loaves went into the oven, I began to tell my husband about the call I had been on right before I got home.

Barb had a heart attack that morning.

In a panic, I had called her son – one of my oldest best friends – as soon as I got the word.

When I as 14, I met Barb – and she was an extra mother in my life for decades now.

Hysterically funny, she and I laughed and laughed over the years with her son.

As I grew into adulthood, she became even more important to me – she became a mentor, someone who gave me advice, and eventually someone to commiserate with about being a grandmother. She has quite literally walked with me from being a teenager to being a grandmother.

My frantic rush to bake yesterday was a coping mechanism.

I needed to make something and share it.

I didn’t realize how badly I was affected by the news until the loaves hit the oven.

As soon as they did, I was sobbing like a baby.

It never crossed my mind that I could lose her. We live on separate coasts and don’t talk as frequently, but I love her fiercely. She’s knit into the fabric of my life like very few people are.

As I smeared the tears over my face and sobbed out the story to my husband, it hit me that I was stress baking.

Banning the ability to go to her, I was baking for others.

As I write this, the report so far has been good.

In the mean time, I added a browned sugar glaze to the top of the loaves at 10pm last night.

I’m still unsettled.