A Simple Birthday

A box of cake mix; who would have known how important it would be?  I came into the office, hit the button on the answering machine and there she was.  The voice sounded young to me, well spoken but a little broken up.  She told about going to a Loaves & Fishes pantry to pick up a week’s supply of food for her family.  She was a single mother with two small children.

One of the things in her bags of food was a cake mix.  Must have been donated in a food drive because cake mixes are definitely an “extra” – we love to give them but don’t purchase them as part of our nutritional bagging list.  This was where her voice broke – her son was turning 5 today and was not going to have a birthday cake.  That is until she looked through the groceries she picked up at one of our food pantries.   She didn’t leave a name or phone number, but said she couldn’t thank us enough.

Well I think it was enough.  Even though this call came into our office years ago, I have never forgotten her gratitude or the break in her voice.  My little boys are now in their 30s.  My precious granddaughter is 6.  None of them have ever gone without a birthday cake.  I wish I could find the person who donated that box of cake mix so many years ago and let them know what a difference it made in the life of a little boy and his mother