Zucchini Bread and Scrabble

Today I will make the journey back home to celebrate, honor and remember the life of one of the moms in my life.

Kyle and her grandson Olly

Kyle was a high school mom.  My best friend in high school, Nikki, was an only child.  Nikki moved down the road the year after I did.  And the year after that, Heather joined us.  We became "The Berridgers"  [we lived on Berridge Road.  Original, huh?]  As the "new kids" in school we quickly became pretty tight.

Little did Kyle know she was getting two extra daughters when they moved in to their new house.  She rolled with the punches and kept three high school girls who trashed her basement, regularly emptied her pantry and rarely cleaned up after ourselves in line.

Kyle LOVED to play games, especially Scrabble.  She played with us a lot.  Looking back, I think it is more accurate to say we actually played with her a lot.  She also had no intention of letting one of us win.  Nope.  She kept the dictionary on the table and would make us look up words, too.  Oh!  Oh!!  And when she won, she gloated.  Big ol' smile.  Followed by this little happy dance and a laugh that drove all of us crazy.

I can't quite recall, but I'm pretty sure she and Nikki averaged at least two games a week.  It was an on-going feud and an even bigger love/hate relationship Nikki had with the game.  Very rarely, Nikki would win a game.  But when she did LOOK OUT!  EVERYONE KNEW IT.  Kyle would let her gloat....for about a day and then continue to pummel her for the next six games straight.

Kyle was green before green was a term.  She had her own garden, grew oodles of vegetables and baked amazing zucchini bread.  One day in high school I decided to make zucchini bread, since I loved hers so much.  But it turned out terribly.  It was dry and heavy and I'm pretty sure no one in my family would eat it.   A few days later, over a heated game of Scrabble [pretty sure The Berridgers were losing to Kyle---even if we combined our score] I told Kyle of my baking debacle.  After she handily whipped us, she got up from the table went to the kitchen and called me over.  She had pulled out all of the ingredients and showed me how to make her zucchini bread recipe.  Once it was in the oven, she copied it to a recipe card and handed it to me.  Twenty three years later I still use her recipe.   

A few days ago this is the text I got from Nikki....

Kyle has certainly left this world too soon.  Damn cancer has claimed another life that I'm just not happy about.  But Kyle is leaving behind a beautiful daughter, whom she raised to be a kind, caring soul with a pretty competitive spirit and great sense of humor, a sweet man of a husband and an adorable grandson.

And that's to say nothing of her zucchini recipe....

God bless you, Kyle.  May you rest peacefully in His loving arms and may you find the ultimate heavenly play of "Sesquioxidizing" for 2,069 points.  Just remember not to gloat in front of Jesus.