Food can be a symbol of love
Food can be a great symboliser of love. I have spoken before about the importance of making sure you cook a loved one a meal from scratch because however it turns out, you tried. What follows are a few short paragraphs, showing just how much food can show love, and how deprivation of food can be the ultimate cruelty.
A woman, a woman that I know well, a woman that I have spent 27 years loving and cherishing, read that posting on The High Tea Cast and thought action should be taken. This cakeless injustice was just too much for one woman who resides in Lincolnshire…my Mum got me a caterpillar cake when I took a trip up to see my family!
After tea one evening, a BBQ expertly cooked by my equally fantastic Dad, she mysteriously went to the kitchen and shut the door. About ten minutes later I was called through and there it was, the fabled caterpillar cake surrounded by party rings and jelly sweets. I was delighted, absolutely thrilled, but you know, that’s what Mum’s do…be amazing.
Through my day job though, I see the other side of the fence. I work for a children’s charity and I hear stories every day about children and young people who aren’t lucky enough to be treated as they should be treated. A young woman I know through work went on national television recently to discuss what led to her being taken into care. She told the television show about how when she was younger, she and her siblings were so hungry that they had to eat fish fingers that had turned green with rot and mould because there was no food, and no money to buy food, in the house.
The young woman was taken into foster care where she lived with a family for many years and is now a graduate, and a fashion designer with her own business. She described me as the Mad Hatter when we met and she has a contagious enthusiasm for life and I am very proud to know her. She started her life without the love that I was, and still am, so freely exposed to by my family, but in the end her new family helped her turn it all around.
I haven’t shared this experience to make you sad, merely to provoke a thought or two.
If there a message that should be taken away from this, it would be to make sure that you really value and openly appreciate those that care for you. I have mentioned my Mum here but it doesn’t have to be a Mum, a Dad or even a family member, it can be anyone who shows you kindness.
If someone cares for you, they will not only do the big things to make you feel great, they will remember the little things too. I was discussing the other day with a friend from work whether I used to show affection to my parents in public as the perception is that young men don’t. I answered in the affirmative, of course I showed them as a younger man that I loved them and now, more than ever, I know just how much they love me.
