The smells of sautéed garlic and burnt toast…

The smells of sautéed garlic and burnt toast always bring me back to my grandmother’s kitchen. It was a tiny, yellow-walled room in Ohio, pcomforting hum of an ancient refrigerator.

Every Saturday morning during my childhood, we had a ritual. I would sit on a mismatched wooden stool, swinging my legs, while she stood by the stove. She didn’t use recipes. Instead, she measured flour in the palm of her hand and timed her baking by the changing light outside the window.

Cooking isn't about rules," she told me once, dusting flour onto my nose. "It's about how much love you can squeeze into a single dish."

When I turned fourteen, everything changed. My family moved across the country, away from the yellow kitchen and the Saturday routines. The distance felt massive, but the emotional gap felt wider as the years rushed by. College, jobs, and new relationships filled my calendar. Our long phone calls gradually dwindled into rushed, five-minute check ins. I always promised I would visit next month, but next month never came.

Two years ago, the phone call I dreaded finally arrived. Her heart had failed.

Returning to her house after the funeral was suffocating. The air was cold, devoid of the familiar garlic aroma. The silence in the kitchen was heavy, almost physical. As I packed up her belongings, I found a battered, oil-stained notebook hidden behind the spice rack.

I opened it, expecting to find her secrets. Instead, the pages were mostly blank, except for the very first one. Written in her shaky, elegant handwriting was a single sentence: Keep the fire lit, and never let the kitchen grow cold.

Right there, standing beneath the faded yellow wallpaper, the dam broke. Tears blurred my vision as the weight of my absence hit me. I had been too busy growing up to notice her growing old. That evening, using her old iron skillet, I made toast. I deliberately let it burn, just a little, just the way she used to. I love that smell beacause this bring my childhood with some special memory which I can't forget