More Wishing. But with Chocolate Red Velvet Cake with Chocolate Brown Butter Frosting

Dear Mimi,


I love to bake. I learned how to bake before I learned how to cook more than ramen noodles or veggie sandwiches. Before I taught myself how to bake, the family joke was that I could mess up scrambled eggs and toast. It's not that you didn't teach me how to cook or bake - I remember helping you make things when I was little. I just wasn't interested, and you never pushed anything on me. But then one day in college, I decided I wanted to bake a cake. (For a boy, of course.) So, 8 and I dusted off the baking pans and made a cake. It was awful. We started over, and ended up with a very ugly but pretty tasty one layer round cake. Before that day, I always thought that I didn't like cake. I discovered that I loved cake - I hated boxed cake and icing from a tub.


Armed with your much loved, well used, and food spattered Betty Crocker cookbook, I started baking. And as much as I enjoy the fruits of my labor, I love the actual baking more. I make many, many things that I never eat. Giving away a cake is almost as good as making one, and certainly more fulfilling than eating one. And less 'filling' in the hip area.

Happy Birthday

Dear Mimi, 

Today is your birthday. It goes so without saying, that I don't even know how to say it anymore without sounding like a broken record, but here it is, anyway: I miss you. I wish you were here. I want to celebrate with you, hug you, hear you, rub your fuzzy lamb head. I want to share some Mexican cheese dip and an inappropriately sized margarita with you. But since I cannot do that, I am going to do the next best thing. I am going to eat the traditional Mexican meal with the people you would have invited to your Birthday dinner: Dad, the Little One, my Little One, your two favorite son-in-laws, Miss Jones, TP, The Beautiful One, SuzQ. 

I know we will laugh and hug and cry. And because we will cry, and because I needed this reminder today, I will remind them of your words.

If That Was the Last Time You Saw Me......

Melanie Morgan-Dohner

If that was the last time you saw me......

Know that I'm dancing! Know that I'm happy! Know that you will always be in my heart.

Know that I love you - this is easy for me to say, as I am at odds with no one.

Know that I have enjoyed my life - it has been filled with amazing joy and delight.

I've found life to be astonishingly beautiful.

Know that the challenges didn't destroy me and the discouragement never lasted.

Know that gratitude has been my key - gratitude and hope and wonder. I hope you won't miss any of it - any of the wonders that surround you.

Know that the end, here, is saturated with peace - I've been close enough to know that.

I'm alive - I'm in life - you'll see me again. We'll talk again. We'll laugh again.

I have complete assurance about where I'm going - it's a trip I've looked forward to, while enjoying life here. 

Dennis and I have come to really enjoy living in the tension of how wonder-filled life here has been - yet, knowing that someday, one day, we'll be making the ultimate transition form here to there! From wonder to wonder.

I've talked with God - I know Him - He is not an idea - the reality of Him is staggering, breath-taking, life-changing. We took a chance - got outside the box of "normal" and never regretted a second of it.

Know that I'm free-range now! Tethered to nothing but love, dancing with Anna Larkin, Donald Morgan, and Jesus.

Love, 

A