Yesterday was my son and daughter-in-law's seventh anniversary. Several years ago, on the days leading up to their wedding, I found my mind exploding with things I wanted my son to know. Or maybe it was just full of things I felt like I needed to say. Most likely, it was a head-on collision of the two. But had I opened my mouth to share it, nonsensical drivel wrapped in tears would have landed in his lap. So I wrote him a letter instead.

This is it.

It’s spring. In Oklahoma that means storms. Wind, rain, lightening, hail, hooks that turn into tornadoes on a dime. Every day is an adventure. We move about doing what we normally do but with one eye on the radar, perpetually “weather aware.” Sometimes super cells manifest, sometimes they don’t. But when they do, they turn things upside down. Tree limbs, garbage cans, pool chair cushions, roofs -- any and every item not battened down, as well as plenty that are-- end up someplace where they’re not supposed to be. And often, the conveniences of our modern world (that we think we can’t live without) go with them. Electric lines come down, the power goes and people go out with it. Out of homes and buildings, onto mutual turf, where we do what we don’t normally do.

We talk.

I have a recipe drawer in my kitchen though I don’t open it very often. In it are six or eight cookbooks-- several small-town plastic-spined put-togethers (fundraiser projects from the “county extension” way back in the day), one hardback from the Pioneer Woman, another titled “Desserts” that I think I received as a wedding gift, and one professionally published paperback from the Women’s Auxiliary at Oklahoma Christian College that I wrote the forward for. The greater contents of the drawer are handwritten loose-leaf recipes separated into categorical bundles secured by sturdy metal clips.

These are the things handed down.