Five years ago today, my mother died—and if there is any hotter way to start a Valentine’s Day post, I dare you to find it!

Want a little treat that’s fast to make and actually kind of good for you? Scroll on down to the recipe below!

Here for griefy stuff—read on.

I kind of hate death days because of all the pressure to DO SOMETHING MEANINGFUL and the false belief they nurture that one day on the calendar means more than any of its 364 friends. My body knows a lot more dates than this one count for something. I suppose I kind of appreciate the calendar notification for the reminder of why my neck has been feeling extra weird and I am suddenly getting a lot of ads for cremation jewelry. Short list of words you will never hear me say: deathiversary, cremains.

Right after our mom died, my sister bought us each a big bottle of her favorite bubble bath and sent mine over with a note that said “I used to wonder about that whole scent/memory thing but Vitabath made me a believer!” Fun slogan alert! I wonder if they know we’re out here huffing it. It’s a very startling bright green color that I do not think occurs in nature so I am not very inclined to soak in it, but one whiff and I am ten years old, at a bath-side conference she convened, talking over something or other. I try not to overuse the whiffs, so they keep their potency.

I could write you six or seven hundred disjointed paragraphs about the ways that my mother was devoted to convention and right conduct and had no sense of humor for a misstep, and another thousand about her humor and the zillion ways she flouted convention and encouraged others to do the same. She dropped out of college to marry my father, and when she told my grandfather (who was VERY invested in her college degree) that this was her plan, he said “warm congratulations and may the bluebird of happiness shit on your birthday cake,” a memorable line that became the kind of hilarious family anecdote that we forget to remember originated with a lot of devastated crying. She returned to college at 35, and pushed on to earn a PhD, but by then her father was way too dead to appreciate these things.

Which reminds me: about 20 years ago, my kids went to a little Waldorf nursery school that also ran a summer camp. They did a different craft each week and there was a lot of fun shhhhh drama about what they could possibly be making that the parents would only get to see at week’s end. The whole thing took place in an adorable and safe, sweet and protective little clearing in the woods. There was a miniature horse. The kids saw no media, and we all took that pledge very seriously because our young children needed to be shielded from troubling things.

Then one July, one of the moms in my younger daughter’s class died in her sleep without warning.

When we broke the news to our kids that night, our 10yo daughter took in the whole thing, all at once, instantly manifesting that expression you get when you accidentally swallow a jawbreaker that is too big for your throat, except into your soul. Her eyes told me she had wasted no time on her way to getting haunted by the idea that death could get up to something like this, something like extracting a tiny child’s parent on a summery Tuesday morning without any of the limping or graying or fading that had formed her fortunate understanding of death until that moment.

The 6yo, by contrast, made a puff of outraged exasperation. “Well now her mom isn’t going to see the tie-dyed shirt!” she said, irritated on everyone’s behalf that the big reveal at the end of the week would fall kind of flat.

I have revisited that night so many times, and their reactions, and who I know them to be now, as adults, and how their responses reflected their stages of development and so many other little glints off the prism of such a watershed moment. They were both right on. Death is so complete and irrevocable, a haunting gotcha to the human condition that renders a giant stomp on your life—and: all the tie-dyed shirts of that life, every tiny time that you stick the landing or miss the ring, are going to make up your experience of that loss as much as the Absence of A Mother, writ large, is going to.

I’m lucky! I got lots of opportunities to show my mom the things and people I’ve made, and to work through the intensities of our connection—not that I took them all. Moms are so complicated! But I have lots of data to extrapolate from if I want to gin up an approximation of how she might feel about a thing.

Her death is the kind we we are taught to wish for, after a long life full of zesty moments. I’ve been doing the usual things we do to lightly torment ourselves—re-reading her obituary and staring at old photos. A bubble bath huff. You know, just poking the bear of my heart in that self-caring way we do. HEY! HEY! DOES THIS STILL CUT??? Ah, humans. Does anyone else feel like we should be better at feeling our way through loss, considering it LITRALLY happens to everyone, everywhere, inevitably?

Chocolate, her one truest love, seems like the most fitting way to connect to her in celebration. I am surprised the cacao industry survived her demise. Chocolatey cheers to her. The romance industry be dashed, I think love, for our personal people and ourselves and our neighbors, can use all the fuel it can get at the moment. Valentine on, everyone!

If you do want to turn on the oven, and to make heart-shaped hearts, head here where you will find cookies and also my two finest stories about heart-shaped hearts and (shocker!) more death stuff. It’s funny what we remember, and I suppose also funny what we forget, but fun fact: I took those cookie pictures on a pool table.

here's the recipe!

raspberry hearts

I’m sure there is a way to make these hearts symmetrical and adorable (like a heart-shaped ice cube mold, for example) but I like the mildly anatomical versions here. I keep a stash of these in the freezer pretty much all the time.

For the chocolate, you can use anything you like but I offer my warmest recommendation that you check out this one and this one, both free of refined sugar and very delicious.

There’s no good reason to resist making these with other fruits, by the way.

Pro tip, use a small bowl to melt the chocolate, for depth.

Also, the amount of chocolate specified here gives you too much to coat the number of hearts or blobs this recipe makes, but if you use any less it becomes hard to get good coverage. You can scrape the excess onto a sheet of parchment and store it for next time, or make a little bark using whatever nuts, seeds and dried fruit you have on hand. You’ll be happy either way, and if you eat the excess melted chocolate off the spatula over the sink, in order to save water or whatever, then you will also probably experience happiness.

The coconut oil is optional but gives a nice tender texture to the coating.

1 cup frozen raspberries
2 tablespoons chia seeds
2 tablespoons maple syrup
dash of vanilla extract
1 cup dark chocolate chips, divided
1 tablespoon coconut oil

Optional, for fanciness:

slivers of crystallized ginger
pink peppercorns
dried rose petals
aleppo pepper flakes
flakey salt
crushed freeze-dried berries

Line a small tray, one that fits in your freezer, with parchment, and make sure there is a spot in the freezer cleared for it.

In a small bowl (I like a pot, for its flat bottom), mash the berries with the chia seeds, maple syrup and vanilla until well combined. Spoon the mixture onto the prepared sheet, in random globs or by offsetting one oblong against another to create a kind of heart shape.

Set the tray in the freezer until these firm up, about 30 minutes.

While your hearts freeze, put 3/4 cup of the chocolate and the coconut oil in a small heatproof bowl and set it in a pan of water. Heat, stirring, until smooth. Remove the bowl from the water bath and immediate add the reserved chocolate to temper the heat of the mixture; stir until smooth.

Remove the tray from the freezer and release the hearts from the paper. Using a fork, dunk each heart into the chocolate and knock the excess off; return to the tray. If you want to add embellishments, do it fast as the cold centers will make the chocolate set right quick.

Return the tray to the freezer so the hearts can set completely, then store them in an airtight container in the freezer, where they will keep for months if they get the chance, which seems unlikely.