Late one night last week, I found myself near tears when the pan of brownies before me were in shambles. They were either burned or too soggy to cut and none of them were good enough by my standards to take to school for my daughter's birthday.
My daughter and I ran out to Safeway, where we wound up in the same line we'd come through a few hours earlier. Back then, we had optimistically filled our cart with the eggs, brownie mix and icing that cost a fraction of the cost of bakery cupcakes. On this second pass through her line, we were armed only with two packages of sad, end-of-day, slightly wilted cupcakes.
The cheerful clerk said 'Oh, ha! You forgot the cupcakes earlier!' All I could do was sigh and say, no, not quite.
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The next day, I brought in the cupcakes and a plate of the brownies I'd been able to salvage. The kids attacked the cupcakes with gusto, the office staff devoured the brownies before I could blink. I held back tears as the class sang Happy Birthday to my beautiful, amazing daughter. Later, I walked with her as she delivered the leftovers to teachers in other classrooms. She was so proud, so confident, and so happy when each teacher wished her a happy birthday.
Walking behind her as she strode around her campus, I remembered what I'd known all along—that what matters more than how my brownies look or if the icing is trying to slide off the cupcakes is just being there with her to celebrate the joys and hold her hand through the sorrows.
