long walk part of gift

Here’s what I did yesterday. And the day before. I made this cake for the daughter of a dear friend and ward member who passed away the end of February from cancer. Her daughter was one of my Laurels back in the day.


I had volunteered to make the cake pro bono and promised her mother one day in the hospital that I would do so. I did this because I loved her and because I knew she would do it for me. This is the same woman who showed up at my doorstep on the eve of Mackenzie’s wedding with a beautifully sewn handmade quilt as a wedding gift. I was stunned. Not just at the skill, beauty and time involved but at what it must have really cost her. There she stood, frail and bald (from all the chemo) with her offering of love. Lance and I looked at each other and fought to keep back the tears. She sacrificed her precious little energy (by working on it here a little, there a little, and then taking rest breaks by lying down on the couch, I later learned) to make that gift. I was so touched by this.

There is a story I have always loved (you probably are familiar with it) about a foreign person who was working in Central Africa. This man had taught a group of native people about the Christmas story and about the wise men. He told them the story of how the wise men had traveled hundreds of miles on foot from ‘the east’ and how they had searched and walked for more than two years in their search for the baby Jesus. He told them about the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, but he explained that the real gift was the walking for hundreds of miles for two years. One young boy heard the story. One day, this boy disappeared from his tribe and was gone for more than two weeks. He finally returned with a gift for the foreign man. His special gift was a beautiful shell. The man asked the boy where he found that shell. “I have never seen such a shell my whole life.” The boy replied, “I have walked to Great Sea. It is only in Great Sea that this shell is found. Long walk part of gift.”

I wanted to do this cake in the worst way. It was important that I do it Wedding cakes are labor intensive and can be a pain. That’s the whole point. When I delivered it yesterday the Bride’s dad hugged and thanked me. He was teary eyed appreciative and said he knew I was busy with my family and the Society of Relief. I wanted so badly to blurt out, “long walk part of gift”.

The long walk is part of the gift we give each other, receive from each other, it’s where we give of our self to another person in love. Most gifts I give aren’t expensive or labor intensive at all. Which is why it’s nice, even necessary sometimes to give up a little bit more.

And as always when we give of ourselves like that we are the one most blessed. There is lots of leftover cake and frosting scraps and it’s very sweet☺