My Loaf of Bread

In the quiet hours of night, when the world softens and the mind drifts inward, I imagine my life as a single loaf of bread. Each slice rests against the next, a collection of moments, each stamped with the shape of a different season of me.

 I lean over it as one might lean over something sacred—curious, but careful not to disturb its fragile order.

I lift a slice from the far end, and there I am: ten years old, tangled in the fierce little dramas of childhood. My brother and I quarrel over the dishes, bickering as though the balance of the universe turned on who held the dishtowel. The slice hums with laughter, annoyance, and the familiar warmth of family rituals we never questioned, though we rarely understood their grace.

I return that memory with tenderness and leap ahead. My twenties emerge. The air here smells of sun-warmed grass, the sound of children’s laughter deep and near. I am stretched out on the patio, a daughter only one year old perched on my chest, her tiny hands discovering the shape of her father’s nose. She giggles as though she has uncovered a treasure. My three-year-old son, golden-haired and intent, pushes his Tonka truck across the patio stones. The slice glows with completion, with the profound simplicity of being essential to someone’s world.

Another slice cuts differently. My fifties. It is sharp with loss—divorce unraveling the scaffolding I thought unshakable. I see that version of myself, worn down, bewildered, carrying the hush of private prayers and unanswered pleas. I look upon him now as I might a wounded traveler, offering not judgment but compassion. The slice is heavy. It asks not to be lingered with, and so I tuck it quickly back into place.

What follows is gentler. Remarriage. The quiet rediscovery of steady joys—shared meals, daily routines, laughter reborn. The slices of these years are soft, nourishing, and tasted with gratitude. My sixties, then, open like a sunrise: retirement, travels across new landscapes, visits with friends along the way, family gatherings deepened by time. That slice is light in my hand, threaded with laughter, buoyant with freedom.

Now I hold the present of my eighties. Still healthy, still crossing distances to sit with loved ones, still waking to the gift of days. My great-granddaughter prepares for her college graduation, a milestone I am humbled to live long enough to witness. This slice feels precious, fragile. To gently place it back is to acknowledge how rare and miraculous it is to hold it at all.

And yet, the loaf continues. More slices remain. I clutch the one called Tomorrow, and temptation flares—that itch to peer ahead, to pull the future forward before it has ripened. My hand lingers on the unknown, but something wiser in me resists. I remember how worry once stole the sweetness from so many moments. I have learned that peace is found not in pulling tomorrow closer, but in savoring the slice at hand. So, I returned the loaf to its cupboard, whole and unbroken. One slice, one day, at a time. Someday always becomes today, and then yesterday, fading quietly into the fabric of memory. What matters is this—each slice, whether soft or crusted, bitter or sweet, has been necessary. Each has been mine.