A Little Bit of Grandma, a Whole Lot of Love + a Pumpkin Pie I Still Can't Quite Get Right

There are some things you inherit that have nothing to do with money or possessions. A handwritten recipe. A particular way of doing something. The smell of a kitchen you haven’t stood in for years. The little things that seem so ordinary while someone is here, and become so incredibly precious when they’re not.

My Grandma Jeune left us one of those things: her pumpkin pie recipe.

Since Grandma returned to wherever we go from here, that recipe has stayed especially close to my dad’s heart, and in turn, ours. I don’t really know what happens when someone dies. I’m not sure any of us do. But I do know that people have this strange way of continuing to exist in the most ordinary places. In things we say that sound suspiciously like them. In habits we didn’t know we picked up. In our kids. In a smell that catches you completely off guard.

And, apparently, in a pumpkin pie nobody can quite get right.

Over the years, Grandma Jeune's grandkids have tried to recreate hers, and now her great-grandkids are taking their stab at it. I’ve tried many times. I’ve always fallen short, which is especially annoying because I’m stubborn and don’t enjoy admitting defeat..

My littlest sister, however, seems to have cracked the code. Winner, winner, chicken dinner. I don’t actually know if she reads my blog posts, but if she does — congrats, sis. You win this one.

There is really only one opinion that matters anyway: my dad’s. It was his mom’s pie, and he remembers exactly what it’s supposed to taste like. Or at least he remembers what he thinks it tasted like, which after all these years may be an entirely different thing. Memory is funny like that. Either way, the need to put a slice in front of him and hear, “Yep. That’s it,” is very real in our family.

But maybe recreating her pie perfectly was never really the point. Maybe it’s calling home for the recipe for the twentieth time because you still haven’t written the damn thing down. It’s adding a little more nutmeg because Dad says it needs more, changing the crust, trying again, and somebody inevitably saying, “Nope, that’s not it.” It’s the great-grandkids having their turn and all of us chasing a taste that exists somewhere between what Grandma actually made and what my dad remembers.

Because some things probably can’t be recreated exactly. They belonged to a particular person, in a particular kitchen, at a particular time in our lives. Maybe part of what made Grandma’s pie taste like Grandma’s pie was simply that she was the one standing there making it.

Soooo I’ve finally accepted that this particular family gift may have skipped me, and I’ve decided to do what I actually know how to do.

I made her a candle. And now I get to share it with you.

Grandma Jeune’s Pumpkin Pie

It smells like spiced pumpkin, baked pastry + warm vanilla. That familiar, comforting scent of something baking in the oven when the house is warm, the kitchen is busy and there’s zero reason to be anywhere else.

I didn’t want this candle to smell like some perfectly styled version of fall. I wanted it to smell like an actual home. A little messy, definitely lived in, someone cooking, someone talking over someone else, probably too many people in the kitchen, something on the counter that should have been put away hours ago, and room for one more person at the table. The kind of house where you’re probably leaving with leftovers whether you asked for them or not.

That’s cozy to me.

And while this candle might not be an exact recreation of Grandma’s pumpkin pie — we’ve established I’m not the person for that job — it carries the feeling of it. The warmth, the familiarity, and that almost unsettling thing scent can do where, for half a second, you are somewhere you haven’t been in years with someone you haven’t seen in years.

Every batch is hand-poured here in our little Tofino studio, and I get to think about Grandma Jeune while I make it.

A Little Love for Campbell River

Grandma spent most of her life in Campbell River. It’s where my parents still call home, and it’s where my sisters and I grew up. There are generations of our family tangled up in that place, and when I started thinking about this candle and what I wanted it to mean beyond our own family, my mind kept going back there.

Caregiving is part of our family story too. I trained as a care aide, my mom was a care aide, and in the final years of Grandma Jeune’s life, my mom and dad helped care for her. There’s something incredibly intimate about watching those roles change. The person who once cared for everyone else begins to need care themselves. Children become caregivers. Families show up in all the imperfect ways families do.

Death and aging have a way of stripping away the polished version of family and leaving you with the real thing. And the real thing is rarely tidy.

So much of caring for someone is made up of completely ordinary acts. Making food. Changing bedding. Driving to appointments. Sitting beside someone. Showing up again tomorrow. They don’t necessarily feel profound while you’re doing them, but looking back, they can become some of the clearest expressions of love.

A portion of the proceeds from every Grandma Jeune’s Pumpkin Pie candle will be donated to the Campbell River & District Adult Care Society. It feels like a small but meaningful way to send something back to the community where Grandma lived, where I grew up, where so much of our family still lives, and where generations of our story have unfolded.

The Things We Carry Forward

The older I get, the more I think this is probably how we keep people. Not perfectly, and not always in the ways we expect.

We keep them in stories that have changed slightly after being told a hundred times. In recipes nobody bothered to properly write down. In old photographs and weird sayings. In the things our parents do that drive us crazy, until one day we catch ourselves doing exactly the same thing. In our kids, who somehow carry pieces of people they barely knew or never got the chance to meet.

Grandma Jeune's pumpkin pie has made its way through three generations of our family now. Her great-grandkids are giving it a go, my little sister is annoyingly good at it, Dad remains the final judge, and I am apparently better suited to wax. I have to think Grandma would find all of this pretty funny.

Maybe one day someone will put a slice in front of Dad, he’ll take a bite and say, “Yep. That’s it.” Maybe we’ll never quite get there. Maybe the pie he remembers doesn’t even exist anymore because memory has added its own little bit of sugar over the years.

I kind of love that possibility too.

Because we can still pull out the recipe. We can call Dad. We can add more nutmeg. We can give the great-grandkids a turn. We can make a mess of the kitchen, argue about the crust and keep telling the stories.

And I can make the candle.

This one is my contribution to the family tradition. A little bit of Grandma, a little bit of Campbell River, a whole lot of love, and something made with my own two hands in the place I’ve made my home.

I hope it finds its way into your home this season. And maybe, when you light it, the smell will catch you off guard and bring someone back to you for a second too.

With love from Tofino,

Tam xo

Picture of my Dad and Grandma Jeune ↓

 

Shop Grandma Jeune’s Pumpkin Pie Candle

Hand-poured in small batches in Tofino. Spiced pumpkin, baked pastry + warm vanilla. A portion of proceeds supports the Campbell River & District Adult Care Society in Grandma Jeune’s honour.