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| The girl we call Party (or Sunshine) got this cake when she turned six |
This cake was a miracle. It might look like a small
blessing compared to the huge ones happening in our lives at the time, but
often it's the little things that keep me going. I barely saw my Sunshine
at all the week of her birthday that year. With lots of help from my
friends, I had the luxury of putting first things first and was able to
extract little pockets of time to spend with the
birthday girl. I set a time to mix and bake the cake with her,
the only hours I spent at home that day. Then another day, we frosted
it...and somehow we managed a birthday party that year as well. This
photo captures a beautiful memory, and a triumph.
No matter what is going on to make life difficult, a little color, something delicious, and especially
a few minutes with loved ones
can make all
the difference.
Sunshine's younger brother was in the hospital on life support. As a
family, we were all just holding on, making it day by day. It's wonderful
to look back and to know what I didn't when I made this cake...in just 18 short
days we would get news that would change everything. We didn't know if
our son would live, and those days added up to 18x24 of the
longest hours of my life. I am so thankful for the caring people who
made those sweet hours with my daughter possible, the amazing hospital staff,
and thankful to God for giving us so much. I really am grateful for it
all: sublime moments with loved ones, wrenching days when things don't
look so good, and even the days when it seems all I do is the mundane. It
all adds up to a wonderful gift.
Incidentally, even though it
didn't feel optimum, this IS the only way to make and decorate a cake:
Break up the larger task into small steps
(Hmmm...I feel some life lessons sneaking up from my subconscious :-). Maybe
someday I'll come up with some analogy to go along with this method :-)
1. Bake the cake and let it cool completely.
2. Wrap the cake well and freeze it solid.
3. When you have time to frost the cake, make the frosting--it should
be really soft, easy to spread.
4. Remove cake from freezer and begin frosting while it's super cold.
5. After frosting the cake, if you want to embellish and don't
have time to finish decorating, you can enjoy this little step later...or
just slap some flowers or toys on the top :-)
