Celebrating life

Since Covid I try to limit how many times I shop and try to freeze more to limit the times I need to shop. Now that there is a concern with the new variant, I needed more shelf space in my freezer.
I have kept my son and daughter-in-law’s 22-year-old wedding cake and realized that it was silly to keep it and it would give me an extra shelf.
I was giving a family gathering and it would be the opportune time to unveil the old cake. I was surprised after taking off 10 layers of foil that the cake was still intact and it looked good. Obviously, not to eat a 22-year-old cake but the icing and decoration were still on the cake.
I took a picture of the cake with their wedding picture behind it. I then went to my local supermarket and showed the picture of the 22-year-old cake to the manager of the bakery department. She could reproduce the cake. She was a graduate of Johnson and Wales and specialized in cake decorating.
I decided to surprise my children with the cake .
I have trouble keeping surprises when I am excited. I first told my sister and she wasn’t excited for me. She didn’t understand since my children had gotten married in the month of October and therefore it wasn’t their anniversary, I then told my daughter and she wasn’t very excited and didn’t say much to me and I then called my granddaughter about the surprise for her parents. She was as excited as my sister, but she was more polite and said how sweet of me, but she had to get off the phone.
I went to my local grocery store and told the woman at the cash register about how I was going to surprise my children reproducing their 22-year-old wedding cake. She was caught up in my excitement to the point I left without paying what I had just bought and got a phone call the next morning that I owed money.

I didn’t know how I was going to present the cake and what I would say. I had the speech I had written for their wedding and thought I might read it. I also thought maybe I should read what I wrote to the immigration dept when I sponsored my French daughter-in-law when she got her green card.
My daughter finally got me focused that the party was not only about my son and daughter-in-law but a celebration of life for my whole family. We had missed so many happenings in our family in the last few years because of Covid. But yet life continued and we were celebrating that we were all together. We had two weddings that had been postponed many times but the couples finally got married. Two graduations, Three new romances, my granddaughter starting college and we were together.
On the top of the cake, I had the baker write L’Chaim – To Life.
The coincidence, which I didn’t remember, was on the original wedding cake. It had the same words – L’Chaim. This is all the party is about. To live and celebrate that we are family and we are together.
To celebrate Life.
Carolyn Rosner lives in Warrington.

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