Off The Record

I Baked Pies For Hospice Patients Every Week – Until One Day, A Pie Arrived For Me

Published on October 13, 2025

I was forced into the kitchen by grief, and creating pies for random people gave me unexpected solace. I never thought that things would change when a pie appeared for me one day.

My entire existence practically disappeared in smoke when I was sixteen years old. But because of my grief, I started making pies for people in need and hospice patients. I had no idea that my generosity and compassion would pay off handsomely.

One of those bitterly cold January evenings, when the windows were so wet, was the scene of the tragedy that forever altered my life. I was listening to my folks’ familiar laughter while they watched TV while cuddled up in bed with my earplugs in.

Then I smelled it, heavy and bitter, smoke mingling with frost. As the fire alarm sounded, I took out my earplugs. With his boots banging on the hardwood, my dad stormed into my room.

He remained silent. He simply took me by the arm, hauled me out into the snow-covered yard in my pajamas via the front door, and dragged me barefoot down the stairs.

He then turned around and hurried back inside to retrieve my grandfather and mother.

Neither he nor my mother or grandfather ever came out again. They were all lost in the fire.

They stated that an electrical problem in the kitchen was the cause of the incident.

My family wasn’t the only ones killed in the fire. My mom gave me a small porcelain horse for my tenth birthday, along with the house, savings, and pictures. Everything.

except from me.

I didn’t think I was deserving of being spared.

And I stopped life after that terrible event. I was adrift.

After a local volunteer helped me find a place, I ended myself in a community shelter. For displaced youth, they referred to it as a dorm-style housing arrangement, but it felt more like a midway world between a question mark and tragedy.

Another girl who never talked was in the same room as me.

Each floor had two restrooms, and the kitchen was shared by roughly 20 people. However, it was clean, safe, and warm. I was thankful that I had a bed.

Aunt Denise, my mom’s older sister and only surviving sibling, told me she didn’t have space for me, so I could have ended up with family.

“I’m sorry, sweetie, but there’s no space here,” she said on the phone. “Your uncle works in the spare room. Furthermore, I refuse to give up my reading nook for a teenager. You know, I’m also in mourning.”

Even though she was in mourning, she was still able to steal half of the money I got from the insurance. She promised to use money to get me everything I needed, including clothes and therapy.

Rather, she bought a new automobile, a wine fridge, romance and detective novels for herself, and began wearing new clothes and fancy hats to her weekly neighborhood reading club. The woman referred to them as her “grieving wardrobe” and claimed that they made her appear “expensive but in mourning.”

I was too numb to object and didn’t argue. Besides, my family was the most valuable item I had already lost. At least I had a mattress, a little desk, and peaceful hours between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m., I told myself.

I pushed myself into school throughout the day and studied as like my life depended on it, which, to be honest, it did. Scholarships were necessary for me to attend college. Finding a job and starting a life on my own required a strategy. Even if that someone was only my future self, I still needed to matter.

At night, however, I took over the kitchen while everyone else in the dorm watched TV in the common room, played music on their phones, or browsed TikTok. When I could afford it, I made pies with blueberries, apples, cherries, peaches, and strawberry rhubarb.

I purchased items like flour, fruit, and butter with the money I saved up each month. I used a scratched-up Formica counter to knead the dough, rolled it out using a wine bottle I discovered in the garbage, and baked them in the shared kitchen’s slightly crooked oven.

My highest number was once 20, but occasionally I was able to manufacture ten in a single evening.

After that, I packed them up and transported them to the nearby hospice center and city homeless shelter in an incognito manner. Always in silence, and at night. I would drop them off with the volunteers or a nurse.

I only left the pie and never left my name or a note. Credit was not what I wanted. Even though my family was gone, I still had love, and I had to find a home for it.

I haven’t met the individuals that eat them, though. It was too difficult.

My aunt, who would occasionally stop by and call to “check in on me,” didn’t get it.

When I called her, she told me, “You’re wasting money,” “Those folks have no idea who you are. I should be the one receiving that money. I also lost my sibling.”

She didn’t sound depressed, though. She seemed irritated, as though I were an issue she hadn’t anticipated persisting for this long.

I continued to bake, using a donated paring knife to cut fruit, kneading bread by hand, and setting timers on a microwave oven that had been scraped up. For the first time, my hands felt still, my mind stopped racing, and I had a reason to be grieving.

Then, two weeks after my eighteenth birthday, I received a surprise package.

During lunch, I received it from the hostel receptionist. My name was written in exquisite calligraphy on brown cardboard, but there was no return address.

There at the front desk, I opened it.

There was a pecan pie inside!

With a golden crust, a braided edge, and a coating of powdered sugar that looked like snow, it was ideal. Warm, buttery, and familiar, that pie had a magical scent. I felt lightheaded just from the smell!

I was taken by surprise! Who sent it was unknown to me.

But when I discovered what was inside, I almost passed out as I cut it with a knife the receptionist kept in a drawer!

It came in a little, transparent plastic container and contained a folded piece of heavy stationery. The ink was slightly smudged at the corners, and it had a cream color. The message said:

“To the young lady with the golden hands and the good heart,

My last few months were cozy and loving because to your pies.

I sensed your essence even if I never saw your face.

I have no family remaining.

But I want to leave my blessings and my home to someone who understands what love tastes like.

M.”

I let the note fall.

I slipped to the floor beside the postal desk and nearly dropped the box out of my lap. I sat there for a long time, feeling my heartbeat behind my eyelids as I stared at the crust.

The receptionist leaped to her feet and came over to check on me.

I told her what had happened and showed her the note. With the paper still in my hand, she helped me up with the box and suggested that I go take a nap. “Some things seem easier after a little nap,” she stated.

Before a lawyer called me three days later, I had no idea what the memo meant.

Paul was his name. His diction was sharp and his voice was calm. I was asked to verify my identity and whether I had been bringing baked goods to the nearby hospice for almost half a year.

I responded, “Yes,” but my voice was hardly recognizable.

“Then you may want to sit down,” he continued. Last week, Margaret Hendley died away. She designated you as her estate’s only beneficiary.

After blinking to be sure I had heard him correctly, I wondered if he had called the correct person. “Pardon me? Which estate?”

“Yes. You own her house, car, personal property, and a trust fund that her late spouse left her but she never used. Without her touching it, the trust accumulated interest for almost two decades. It is worth $5.3 million.”

Curled up with an open backpack full of scholarship forms on a bus seat outside the library, I giggled. I glanced at the sky after glancing at them. I was almost afraid of the weird, piercing sound I made when I laughed!

“But… she didn’t even know who I was,” I replied.

He answered, “Actually, she did,” “She requested assistance from the hospice workers in locating you. One of the night nurses committed your gray knit cap, your coat, and the crimson one without a button to memory. One evening, she watched you enter the shelter from a distance. After finding your name and learning how you got there, the nurse talked to the receptionist.”

“She… followed me?”

“Margaret wanted to express her gratitude. Gently and quietly, without frightening you off.”

I was unable to talk. My throat was extremely constricted.

Paul went on, “Every time a pie arrived, Margaret, who had also lost her sight, requested the nurses for thorough explanations. From their scents, she would infer the flavors. She was adamant about keeping slices to give to the other patients.”

In addition, my client kept a journal in which she noted which pies were delivered every day and made educated guesses about the character of the baker. She even made an attempt to estimate your age. ‘Whoever she is, she’s quiet, young, and mourning,’ she once told me when I was there. However, she is still capable of love.

I was completely taken aback!

“Could you tell me a little more about Margaret?” Feeling a connection to a woman I had never met and would never meet, I inquired gently.

Paul said, “She guessed that you’d ask,” clearly grinning at Margaret’s accurate assumption. “Margaret was a librarian by profession. She had no children and was widowed. Her final year was spent in hospice care due to stage 4 liver cancer. She hardly talked to anyone until the pies started arriving, according to the workers.”

Paul assured me that he would keep me informed regarding the estate transfer.

For a while, I kept the news to myself. I kept the other girls at the refuge in the dark. I was afraid it might disappear if I said it aloud.

Aunt Denise, however, later learned.

Although I had no idea how, I quickly figured it out. The local probate court was required to list Margaret’s estate publicly. It appeared in the city newspaper’s legal notices section. Denise mostly subscribes for the obituaries and the crossword puzzle. She noticed my name.

That night, she gave me a call. I didn’t even greet them.

She said, “You owe me,” right away. “You were reared by me following the fire. I did everything for you. I am a member of your family.”

I remarked, “You gave me nothing,”

“You’re not worthy! I also lost your mother. I should have gotten that house. Her sister should have received the money. To family!”

I ended the call. I blocked her number after that.

Margaret’s home has a large porch and broad streets in a peaceful neighborhood. The front porch swings in the breeze and the air smells of old books and cedar. The backyard has a small greenhouse with orchids and roses.

On their 30th anniversary, her husband had it constructed for her.

Last month, I moved in. I haven’t touched the cash yet.

Now, though, I bake in her kitchen. I use her mixer, rolling pin, and wooden spoons. “The best ingredient is time,” says the note over the oven.

I continue to provide pies to the homeless, hospice, and now the hospital. But now I write my name in a little message on every box.

“Lovely baked. from a person who has experienced your situation.”

My life was changed by a stranger’s pie.

But what gave me something I hadn’t felt in years was her generosity, not the wealth or the mansion.

Calm.

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