cupcakes for breakfast
Sometimes I’m reminded… to appreciate the little things… to enjoy or indulge in something that is considered “an affordable luxury”! Not a huge, expensive, crazy extravagance, but a simple, special reward of taste or beauty or sound. I’m talking about cupcakes for breakfast! or a beautiful blossom on the corner of a cluttered desk… or a moment to listen to a favorite song.
Here’s a story a friend of mine shared with me recently. She is from a large, close Italian family, and has been so generous to Heliotrope for Hospice, both financially and emotionally. In honor of her brother, and also in memory of her nephew, her family has been incredibly supportive! Their lives have been deeply touched by hospice care. They are truly compassionate people.
This story is really special, and I’d like share it with you.
… “Sunday turned out to be a very special time. We met at my house and went to the cemetery together around 10am. It was a beautiful morning and we brought chairs and I brought coffee and my sister brought 4 cupcakes from the Lemon Grove bakery. Every morning that Tommy worked in the shop, he would get 2 cupcakes and coffee for breakfast. He would set that little pink box on the top of his grinding machine and eat and work…
…I brought my clippers and cleaned up the overgrowth around the headstones and put a fresh flower arrangement in the little cup. The 4 of us just sat there and had coffee and a cupcake and reminisced – we laughed and cried and told stories from when we were young in Dayton, Ohio. We didn’t dwell on his problems or death – just appreciated all the good things about him. It was really good…”
What a great celebration on the one year anniversary of her brother’s passing! Thank you, my friend, for sharing this moment with me! I never met Tommy, but I would like to dedicate my “equivalent” of a cupcake to him, and that is, of course, one of my favorite flowers: a cymbidium orchid! This particular blossom, donated a few weeks ago, has the most awesome, unusual striations thru the petals. It is “delicious” to me! I think Tommy would have liked it… and I’m thinking this week, I may have to buy a cupcake for breakfast, too!
You have me in tears my friend. The way you told his story is so perfect!! It seems more real and special reading it here in your blog. Tommy would be happy to know family and strangers are still sharing that story!!
You write wonderfully well – you should do that along with your flowers!! More people need to read your words about – life – flowers and special meanings.
Love you
Marge
Marge, thank you for letting me share your story! it inspired me, so I knew it would touch others. and thanks for your kind words!
Diane, I hope you are keeping all of these and thinking of writing a book. I’ve said it before. It would be a very special one with beautiful pictures, stories and sooooo much more.
This story of a loss, a celebration, cupcakes…one that I will share with others. Thank you, Marge, for sharing, thank you, Diane, for writing it so eloquently.