The treasure in the burnt bread

Please recall the ‘treasure’ in the burnt bread. The bread that inadvertently got burnt while your mother or wife was trying to ‘pleasure’ your appetitive desire. Recall that burnt bread. Recall the taste of what eventually turned out to be an over-marinated meat. The delight in the extremely spicy meals. Yes. I can recall this […]

Please recall the ‘treasure’ in the burnt bread. The bread that inadvertently got burnt while your mother or wife was trying to ‘pleasure’ your appetitive desire. Recall that burnt bread. Recall the taste of what eventually turned out to be an over-marinated meat. The delight in the extremely spicy meals. Yes. I can recall this too – the joy in the taste of the burnt cooked beans that we usually scoop up from the beans pot every weekend.  But of all these ‘burnt’ meals, it was the burnt bread in my mother’s kitchen that remains alluring in my memory. Here goes the story told to me by an elder.

One evening, my mother made dinner after a hard day’s work. She put a plate of eggs, salad and burnt toast in front of my father. I immediately noticed the burnt toast bread.  My emotions became torn between pity and empathy – pity for my mother, who must have laboured and toiled to prepare the meal, and empathy for my father, whose desire for a sumptuous dinner must have gone unfulfilled.

Thus, I started waiting. I started waiting to see what my father’s reaction to the incident would be. Was he going to complain about it? To my utter surprise and delight, my father started to eat them. While eating, he started smiling. He even went on to ask me about how I spent my day at school.

Gently and in a voice laden with full remorse, my mother apologised to my father for the burnt toast. I will never forget his response to her: “Honey, I love burnt toast.”

I could not believe my ears. With those words, what I had anticipated would be an acrimonious night became that circumscribed by love, forgiveness, compassion and harmony. This reminds me of the instructions and injunctions of the Almighty in Quran 3:133-135. He says: “And hasten towards forgiveness from your Lord and a Paradise as vast as the heavens and the earth, prepared for those mindful of the Almighty.  They are those who donate in prosperity and adversity, control their anger, and pardon others; And the Almighty loves the good-doers.” Thus, for me, by saying “Honey, I love burnt toast”, my father was actually using the burnt toast as a metaphor; the metaphor for human frailties, human infirmities and errors. He might have sought to allude to the above injunctions that to qualify for entrance into paradise, the believer must recognise his imperfections and therefore constantly seek to forgive others of the same whenever the occasion arises.

But that is not all. The story also emphasises the necessity for couples not to forget the ‘beautiful’ days of bliss that they had spent together; that since life is like a ride on a stormy ocean, errors and mistakes are bound to be made. The key to make it successful is to not focus on a page of error but on the book of progress and happiness. The woman who made a burnt toast today must have made probably thousands of sumptuous toasts in the past. The mistakes of today are lessons for a better life tomorrow.

Later, when I went to bed and my father came over to kiss me goodnight, I asked him if he really liked the burnt toast. He hugged me and said, “Your mother has had a difficult day and she is really tired. She went out of her way to prepare this meal for us; why blame her and hurt her? Burnt toast never hurts anyone, but words can be very painful.”

Learn to show appreciation not necessarily for the action, but for the intention. Intentions are sacred and spiritual; actions are profane and temporal.