Lefse, Loss, and the November Question

Every November, my body remembers before my calendar does. 

The air changes. The light thins out. The kitchen starts calling in that quiet way kitchens do when they know something sacred has happened there before. 

For me, November smells like potatoes and flour. It sounds like laughter over a hot griddle, kids running in and out, someone miscounting stacks, someone else sneaking a warm piece of lefse before it has cooled. 

And underneath all of that, November carries grief. 

Years ago, my sister Jody was dying. 

She was 36 years old. Her boys were 10 and 8. 

There are some sentences that never feel natural no matter how many years pass. A woman that young should not be dying. Two boys that little should not be preparing to lose their mother. A family should not have to learn how to keep breathing while watching someone they love slip away. 

But that was where we were. 

There was nothing simple about it. Nothing tidy. Nothing anyone could fix. 

I remember the heaviness of those days. The way people spoke softly. The way everyone was waiting, even when no one wanted to admit we were waiting. Waiting for an update. Waiting for a change. Waiting for death to come into the room and take someone we loved. 

I could not sit waiting for death, so I reached for lefse. 

That may sound strange if lefse has not been part of your life. But for me, lefse is not just food. It is memory. It is family. It is hands moving when the heart cannot. It is something to do when there is nothing you can do. 

In the Middle of Grief, We Made Lefse

And so, in the middle of grief, we made lefse. 

We gathered from Thursday through Sunday. Four days of potatoes, rolling pins, griddles, flour on the counters, and people moving in and out of the kitchen. We made 200 pounds of lefse. 

Two hundred pounds. 

It was not a small little afternoon project. It was an undertaking. It was a family production. It was messy and warm and exhausting and full of the kind of energy that happens when everyone knows this is about more than the food. 

Jody was there. 

She was not tucked away from it. She was not treated like a fragile object in the corner. She was part of it. 

She became quality control. 

She laughed. She tasted. She gave her opinions. She messed up the counts. She was present. 

I can still see that so clearly. Her there with us, in the middle of all that flour and heat and movement. Not as a symbol. Not as a lesson. Just as Jody. 

Alive. 

Laughing. 

Eating lefse. 

Being loved. 

The kids sold the lefse to help fund an ice fishing trip up near the Canadian border. That detail still gets me. In the middle of a season that could have been only sorrow, there was still a plan. Still something to look forward to. Still boys being boys. Still cold air and fishing lines and a trip north. 

That is what family does sometimes. It builds something ordinary inside the unbearable. 

It says, yes, this is happening, and also we are going to peel potatoes. 

Yes, this is heartbreaking, and also we are going to feed people. 

Yes, we are scared, and also these boys are going ice fishing. 

Three days after the last griddle was turned off, Jody died. 

I do not know how to write that sentence without feeling the quiet come back into the room. 

Three days. 

The lefse was done. The counters had been wiped down. The flour had settled. The stacks had been counted, probably recounted after Jody had her fun with the numbers. The kitchen had gone back to being a kitchen. 

And then she was gone. 

There are griefs that become tied to seasons. You do not choose it. It just happens. The body remembers. The light remembers. The calendar turns, and suddenly you are back in the kitchen with someone who is no longer here. 

Every November brings that memory back to me. 

Not always in the same way. Some years it comes gently, like a hand on my shoulder. Some years it comes with a weight in my chest. Some years I am surprised by it while doing the most ordinary thing, pulling out a bowl or washing potatoes or seeing the first gray sky that looks like November. 

And Jody is there again. 

The boys are little again. 

The griddle is hot again. 

The family is gathered again. 

The laughter is mixed with sorrow again. 

Six years ago, another dear friend of mine, Minerva also died in early November. 

That loss folded itself into the same season. Another name. Another face. Another person I loved and no longer get to call. November became even more layered for me after that. 

It is no longer just the month before the holidays. It is not just a time for recipes and gatherings and lists. 

The Question November Keeps Asking

November has become a question. 

And the question is not dramatic. It is not loud. It does not arrive with fear. It comes quietly, usually in the kitchen, usually while my hands are busy. 

Am I living with intention? 

Am I honoring myself in the decisions I make? 

Am I including myself in my own life? 

That last one has stayed with me. 

Including myself in my own life. 

For women, especially women who have spent decades caring for everyone else, that can be a tender question. Many of us know how to show up. We know how to make the meal, remember the birthdays, care for the parents, support the kids, comfort the friend, keep the traditions alive, and make sure everyone has what they need. 

We are very good at being present for other people. 

But somewhere along the way, it is easy to disappear from our own days. 

Not because we do not matter. Not because anyone asked us to vanish. Sometimes it happens slowly, one yes at a time. One postponed dream. One swallowed opinion. One decision made to keep things easy. One more season of saying, I will get to myself later. 

November asks me if later is still the plan. 

Jody did not get later. 

My friend did not get later. 

And I do not say that to be frightening. I say it because it is true. 

Legacy is What We Practice While We Are Here

Life is tender. Life is shorter than we think. And the legacy we leave is not only built at the end. It is not only what people say about us after we are gone. 

Legacy is what we practice while we are here. 

It is how we gather. 

It is how we laugh when everything is hard. 

It is how we let people help. 

It is how we feed each other. 

It is how we keep showing up with our whole selves, not just the useful parts. 

That weekend of lefse was part of Jody’s legacy. Not because she planned it that way. Not because it was perfect or polished or sentimental. It mattered because she was present in it. She let herself be part of the noise and the flour and the tasting and the teasing. She let her family have that memory with her. 

What a gift that was. 

I think about my nephews, now no longer boys, and I hope they still carry some piece of that weekend with them. Not just the sadness. I hope they remember their mom laughing. I hope they remember her tasting lefse. I hope they remember the kitchen full of people who loved them enough to keep moving, keep working, keep making something together when the world was falling apart. 

Food can do that. 

Tradition can do that. 

It can hold what we cannot say yet. 

It can give our hands a way to pray. 

It can keep people in the room long after they are gone. 

I know lefse is just potatoes, flour, milk, butter, and salt. I know it can be measured and rolled and cooked and stacked. I know there are practical steps and better tools and ways to make the process easier. 

But I also know it can become a container. 

For grief. 

For laughter. 

For family. 

For memory. 

For the kind of love that needs somewhere to go. 

That is why November still matters to me. It brings me back to the table. It asks me to remember the people I have loved. It asks me to look at my own life honestly. 

Not selfishly. Truthfully. 

Am I choosing what matters? 

Am I saying what needs to be said? 

Am I making room for joy, even in complicated seasons? 

Am I allowing myself to be seen, known, and included? 

Am I living like my life belongs to me too? 

These are not questions I answer once. I answer them in small ways, over and over. 

In what I say yes to. 

In what I finally release. 

In the traditions I keep. 

In the new ones I allow myself to begin. 

In the way I gather people at the table. 

In the way I stand at the counter with flour on my hands and remember that I am still here. 

If November is tender for you too, maybe you understand this. Maybe there is a person who comes back to you with a certain recipe, a certain song, a certain weather, a certain chair at the table. Maybe there is a season that asks you to pause and listen. 

Let it ask. 

Let it be sacred without needing it to be neat. 

Let the memory come. 

Let the love come with it. 

And when you are ready, ask yourself gently: 

Where am I being invited to live more truthfully? 

Where have I left myself out? 

What legacy am I practicing today, while I am still here? 

If lefse is part of your story or you want it to become part of your family’s story, Lefse Made Simple can help you gather, learn, and make it with confidence.