A Cake, A Cat and A Make-Believe Magic Wand, part 2

As we continued our adventure I realized we would have to make really good time to make it to our destination by six o’clock. I eased our car into traffic beginning the next leg of our journey. I looked at the clock in the car then thought about the route ahead. Sure, it was only a few miles away but there were factors that would slow us down. Again, there are plans but there is also reality. Traffic was still thick. There would be at least five red lights to navigate through. And then there is that one street where speed cameras live and magically produce speeding tickets which in turn provides a good reason to drive the slower than desired speed limit even when in a hurry. I quickly became resigned to the fact that we would be late. Admittedly, before Hannah, and even before Jennifer, I sometimes had a problem with getting to places on time. Now, married and with a young one, that getting-to-places-on-time thing is even more of a challenge. Now, despite lots of considering this process and planning it out to some degree we would still somehow wear our lateness through the door on this evening.

Mind you this lateness was only by about five minutes. Still, late is late. The good news is we weren’t the only ones who struggled to get to the church building by six o’clock. As we walked into the building with others, there was a small sense of victory. We had conquered the dinner battle. We had arrived here. Now, maybe we didn’t outright win this battle the way we really wanted to do but that part of the evening was now behind us. We could breathe again. Then another sinking feeling weaved its way into the room. We still had the class and cake decorating to go through.

It is amazing sometimes to watch how your child picks up some of your own traits. Jennifer and I are both slow to warm to social situations. It may take us a few minutes to feel comfortable enough to step into a large crowd of people, even if we know some of the people there very well. It may even be a much smaller group of people but still there is usually a few awkward moments of silence while we try to catch our balance before moving forward. We have found Hannah to be the exact same way. We can tell her we are going to visit her grandparents or her friends and she will become very excited talking all about these people and get really fired up about going. Then, when we actually get to where we are going, she quietly reverts to a shell where she peeks out enough from time to time to assess how she can fit into what is happening. This night was no different. While the dads who had gathered this night began meeting in the church kitchen to begin the class, the children were turned loose in the gym, just outside the kitchen, to play and run off the excess energy stored inside. Here was Hannah, clinging to my pants leg as if it were a life vest for a drowning person.

I sometimes feel part of being the father of a young child is being a good salesman. I have often felt like a salesman when trying to convince Hannah to do something. So, on this night, I put on my sales hat and began trying to convince Hannah that I would be just one room away while she played with her friends. These were some of her favorite friends I said. She goes to daycare with two of the ones here this night and another has been her friend for a long time. I sweetened the deal by pointing out the tricycles and other toys available and as a bonus, the large room she would have to enjoy these things. Hannah is a tough customer though and wasn’t buying what I was selling. Finally, it came down to me telling Hannah to play with her friends and walking away. I was never great at sales.

Our class started. Soon, we were being taught the basics of cake decoration. Now and then a child would squall or a minor crash could be heard. One of the dads would step to the kitchen door, look into the big room and determine if action needed to be taken. I peered out a time or two myself to locate Hannah and a friend riding in cars taking turns pushing one another, laughing and giggling like little girls should. Back in the kitchen, the dads continued on our journey to help our children create an edible masterpiece for Mom.

Right about then, nature called. Hannah stepped into the kitchen, located me, tugged on my pants leg and the once reluctant little girl loudly announced, “Daddy, I gotta go potty.” Every dad in the room gave a passing, yet knowing, glance, so I excused us to take Hannah to a bathroom. As I stepped out of the kitchen I realized the dilemma before me. Here, at the church building, she usually goes to the bathroom with her mother and that would be to the ladies restroom. I cannot go there and would not even think of going there-not even on this evening with only a handful of people here. I can’t take her to the men’s room either. I mean at her age how would I explain urinals to her? Then it hits me, there is a single restroom down a hallway near her Sunday school classroom. As we approach that room, Hannah objects demanding we go to “the blue bathroom”. Try as I might I cannot get Hannah to understand that Dad cannot go to “the blue bathroom” and how we need to go to this bathroom. I pull the stubborn little girl down the hall to this specific bathroom and she is not happy about it in the least bit. She cries. She wails. Still, we go to this bathroom that to a dissatisfied little girl is not “the blue bathroom”. Once we are there, we wait. And we wait. Despite the urgency displayed in the kitchen, this potty break is a bust. So, we wash up and return to the others, Hannah to her friends and me to the class.

I try to catch up from my absence. I look at the patterns the other dads have been working on and try to copy them. I then see Hannah again. This time she tells me again that she needs to potty. So, I put the bag full of frosting down and take Hannah’s hand and off we go again to the bathroom. This time, just removed by a mere minutes from our last visit, which was filled with drama and disappointment, Hannah is pleased to see this particular bathroom. I am glad to say the second time was the charm as this potty break visit was successful. Again, we washed our hands and returned to our friends.

By the time I get back to the class, it is nearing its end. It was obvious to me that some of the dads really had potential to do wonderful things with a bag full of frosting and the right tip and a cake. I, on the other hand, felt like I might need a semester’s worth of classes just to get by with a C- grade.

As the class ended, the dads began rounding up their children. We would all now begin decorating our own cakes. Hannah was ready for this. She insisted on taking the frosting bag to attempt to squeeze out some pattern onto the cake. She loved cutting out patterns of other frosting and placing those on the cake. I asked her if she wanted me to write Mom’s name on the cake and she was all for this. As I shakily squeezed out an M I realized I likely made the letter just a bit too big for the size of cake we had. Subsequently, the O and the other M were just a bit smaller in size. That didn’t really matter anyway since about the time I finished writing the word Mom, Hannah stuck her finger in the icing, took a swipe through the word ‘MOM’ then licked the icing off her finger. We placed cut out hearts on the cake and I even attempted a couple of borders around the edge of the cake. As I worked away, Hannah would now and then poke a finger into the cake or swipe at the icing to taste the sugary goodness for herself.

It was soon time to go. We thanked our teachers for the evening. We told our friends goodbye. We carefully loaded our cake into a box before leaving for home. On the ride, I asked Hannah if she were looking forward to giving her cake to her mother and she said she was excited about it.

During the class, likely between potty breaks, my wife had sent me a text that our cat had died that evening. So, I knew this troubling news on our ride home. I had feared this moment for several days anyway as our cat had seemed to decline in health quickly. I knew it would be a different experience for us coming home every day without Daisy meeting and greeting us at the door and how this would be our experience beginning on this very night. As we drove home, I tossed around things I might say to Hannah to let her know how Daisy, our cat, would no longer be around.

We got home where Jennifer was waiting on us. Hannah was very excited about the cake. Mother’s Day was still a few days away but we all knew that this cake would not last a few more minutes without being unveiled much less a few more days.

It had been a hard week on Jennifer. Work had beat down on her pretty hard. Daisy, our fourteen year old cat, had grown sick quickly, and passed away just a few hours earlier. Daisy had been her cat before we were married, so her loss ran deeper than mine or Hannah's. I am not sure how she was holding up but as I looked at her when we walked through the door she appeared to have found a certain peace in it all.

As Hannah and Jennifer opened the cake box I snapped a few pictures. Jennifer fawned over the cake and Hannah beamed with pride. A decision was made that we needed to eat some of the cake. We pulled the cake out of the box and took more pictures. In the light of our kitchen, the imperfections of the cake decorating class seemed more obvious. A cut-out heart sat on the cake sideways. The border was uneven and choppy in spots. There were a few small finger pokes in the cake and the icing had a few finger swipes here and there. When I looked back at Jennifer and Hannah I could tell they looked past those imperfections and saw a beautiful masterpiece made by one of them for the other one of them. We moved the cake to the dinner table where Hannah insisted on cutting the cake. She gave it an effort before Jennifer helped her. We ate up enjoying every bite. While the cake was good my most favorite part was reliving some of the fun moments Hannah and I shared that evening with Jennifer and seeing the two of them light up with smiles and laughter as we started this Mother’s Day celebration a few days early.

Life is full of mountains and valleys though. Someone once pointed out to me how when we are on top of a mountain that a valley is often near. Just a few minutes after that celebration, Hannah mentioned Daisy the cat. We sat down with Hannah on our couch. Then in a very eloquent way Jennifer explained to her that Daisy had died that day. Daisy would not be coming home. It is hard to know how anyone will react to such bad news. We had no idea how Hannah would respond. She cried long and hard. Even though Daisy wasn’t the friendliest cat, she was a constant in our home all of Hannah’s life and now that constant was gone, and a little girl experienced loss for the first time.

There we three sat, crying, holding on to one another just a few minutes removed from laughing and smiling and eating cake. All in one day we saw a mountain and we saw a valley. We stretched beyond our own expectations and our own comfort and accepted change when we had to do so.

At that moment I looked around for Hannah's make-believe magic wand from earlier in the evening. No doubt it was somewhere nearby then. I realized though that we didn't need a magic wand. We had each other. And in some sense that is it's own magic, a world shared with one another providing healing, comfort, celebration, laughter, a world of something special that does all the things that matter when you and the ones you love come together as family.