Happy Birthday, David

As I was attempting to find the bottom of the top of my computer desk, I came across a photograph.  Really.  A printed photograph.  Memory served me well, and I immediately recognized it for what it was.  I was impressed.  I was even more impressed when I discovered it was actually a photo of me.  I had dark hair.  Two surprises there!  I was amazingly thin.  (My memory doesn't go back that far.)  I still had my coke bottle glasses.  And I am holding a cake I had just made and decorated in the shape of a guitar.  It was, (insert drum roll here) for David.  (See, the titles do actually mean something!)  I turned the picture over and discovered it was from 1988.  David was 8.  I wasn't.  Oh, the memories that came flooding back.  The 60+ cake pans I had.  Butter cream icing everywhere.  Worse, powdered sugar everywhere.  But the cakes were good.  The decorations were good.  The times were good!  And those cakes resulted in my very own kitchen in the basement...with running water and everything.  And there's another memory.  My mother-in-law, slyly smiling and saying "Isn't running water wonderful?"  Then it was the joke about the Dairy Queen, the first time (only time?) I ever heard my father-in-law swear, the wedding when the candles "plopped" onto the plastic, the "just put it all in your mouth at once" exhortation about the little pepper that I was hesitant to try, the 14000 wonderful children, the amazingly supportive family, and the friends who have and continue to change my life!  Tears in the eyes.  Tears of thankfulness, of loss, of love.  All from one photograph.  David is a happy and successful adult.  He still has birthdays.  Maybe next year, I'll bake him a cake!  Know you are loved!