I pull the cake out of the oven at 5:45, lay it to the side to cool, stare at lit candles in the darkness and wonder why Che's not up yet!
It's Sarah's birthday and we have plans to have the cake ready for breakfast!
I've never, ever seen a 5 year old absolutely delighted it's her Mother's birthday but Che is bananas about it!
As the wonder of a woman I'm husband to secretly suggested, I'd taken Che to "The Dollar Tree", on a Daddy/Daughter date, gave her $20 telling her to buy whatever gifts she wants for her Mom.
Sarah really is simply brilliant.
Jus' saying.
The first things Che picks out are birthday napkins, plates and candles for the cake which she's so excited to make which is why it's crazy she's not up.
I'm always up!
Trust me, you don't want to know all the reasons why.
Every morning, Che hears me rumbling around and she gets up to be with me.
OH MY GOD you want to talk about love personified through intense cuddling by candlelight? Even though I wished she slept longer, I delight in the high Holy moments.
Appearing in the darkness, clutching her "blankey", blond hair askew in every direction from her pillow and holding "Baby", she softly says, "Da."
Everything else happening in my life is irrelevant at that precise moment as I pick her up, she tightly hugs me and we fall of the sofa together!
"For unto us a child is born ..."
Fully awake a nano-second later, we decorate the cake and Che places all 48 candles on it even though that's not Sarah's age.
Who cares when you're having fun?
Maybe Che will remember it years from now.
And she'll bring me back to life by telling the story.
Perhaps Sarah will tell her version of what happened on her birthday the years we baked birthday cake for breakfast.
And they'll laugh and love the memory and, this is where faith comes in, somehow, I don't know how, I'll be there too!
So long as there's the story to tell.
"In the beginning was the Word," the Bible says and words comprise the greatest story ever told, which is our story of course, and we live as long as our story's told.
Obviously stories have to be made before they can be told and to make stories you have to do stuff with someone else!
You have to make a memory to make a story!
There's no other way.
A story requires activity, the more outrageous the better!
Besides, that's how you know you're really living!
If you do something, remember it later and it makes a good story later, well, life goes on regardless of who's present.
If you keep memories to yourself and never share them then stories aren't born.
In ancient Hebrew, it's believed the moment you speak a word, you give it its own life and there's no taking it back no matter how hard you try.
Isn't that the truth!
Somehow, again I have no idea how, doing things together that make memories which become stories to share are tied together with living!
So with as many ailments as we may have in life, and some of us have lots, I spend a lot of my energy doing things with Sarah, Che and the kids to do some things worth remembering.
Some may turn into stories and our Love Child might say one day, "Hey Mom! Remember when Dad and I made the birthday cake with all the candles and sprinkles?"
They'll catch each other's eye, as grins are shared turning them into smiles and then they laugh.
Don't get me wrong, I'm in no hurry to go anywhere but I determined that memories are really the only thing worth making in life but that doesn't mean a thing if they they're not turned into stories.
It doesn't matter if it's a good story or a bad one, the more it's told, the fonder it becomes. Be it a late night invitation to Ashford Castle in Ireland where Sarah played a grand piano while drinking 100 year old Jameson to a crowd's applause or baking a birthday cake with Che, ours is a life full of great stories.
I would tell you some more but it's time to make some new ones first!
