post #2 Adele's story

Adele stood on her tippytoes to peer over the edge of the table. Before her, shining white and glimmering, was The Cake. The French Blessing Cake that was only made once every 4 years. If she didn't get to taste its wonderful sweetness, she would have to wait all the way until she was 9!!! How could they possibly expect her to wait that long? But she was ushered off to bed, and when she woke the next morning, the party had gone and with it, the cake. How great was her disappointment! 4 years was a long time to expect a 5 year old to wait.

At first she cried. And cried and cried to see that the cake was gone. Then she tried to convince herself that the cake wasn't really gone, and that the grownups were just keeping it away from her for some reason. Finally, she accepted the fact that it was gone and wearily turned her attentions to waiting for the new cake to come in four years. Eventually, she nearly forgot that it had been there in the first place.

But then, one day, there it was. She could now see over the table, could even lean in very close to see the cake better. She was excited. She saw that this new cake was different from the former, that it had some new colors in the frosting, and extra filling inside. The filling was what intrigued her. It was a rare occasion to see a French Blessing Cake with filling. The Cake this year had filling because the new cook wanted to impress everyone with his skills. She looked again at the cake, with its fillings. Perhaps this time the grownups would let her taste that beautiful white fluffy cake. In sorrow, she was brought to her bed before the cake had been brought before the guests. In the morning, as she expected, the cake was gone, filling and all. She cried, just like last time, and expected that the process would be the same. Cry, deny, blame others, accept it, wait for a new one, forget the old one ever existed. But she discovered something. She discovered that this second time, the process was different.

She could not accept that the French Blessing Cake she had waited for was gone. She could not accept that the old one had never existed, or that she would wait patiently for the new one. She wondered where this change had come from... she wondered if perhaps it had been the fact that she was 9 instead of 5 this time, or perhaps that the cake had filling this time, or that she had had a better view of the cake, or maybe even just that it was the second time around. At any rate, she felt that her thoughts and memories were so occupied by the old cake, that the new one she knew would come when she was 13 would not be quite as interesting.

And in fact, it wasn't. It was beautiful, she would admit. But it was not for her. It had no filling to intrigue her, to spark her imagination. She was still interested in the one she'd seen when she was 9. She sat down in her bed that night, knowing the adults were eating the cake, and she realized she did not mind at all. She was still absorbed in the memory of that other beautiful cake.

"What does one do" she pondered, "when one cannot, no matter what the circumstances, let go of what one wants to bring back from the past?" When she becomes an adult, will she be offered a slice of a French Blessing Cake? Will she eat it? Or will she still be thinking of the cake she'd seen at 9 that had such exquisite filling?