An Uneaten Slice of Coconut Cake

My daughter and I were riding home from work together on Wednesday evening, and as we passed the new Ukrops Market Hall at the corner of Horsepen and Patterson you could smell the famous fried taters they make, and she asked if we could stop there as she had never been. I pulled into the parking lot, and we went in. We looked around for a few minutes, and as I passed by the cakes I noticed that they had Coconut cakes by the slice. Coconut Cake has always been one of my mom's favorites. When I visit her in the nursing home, I always try to take her a treat, something she loves, a baked potato with all the fixin's, a milkshake, ice cream, my carrot cake (which she has apparently shared about with several of the nurses) and a good Hanover Tomato sandwich. I was able to take her all those things at one time or another, but never Ukrops Coconut Cake because I was never able to find it by the slice. I was thrilled and grabbed a slice to take with me on my visit Friday. Thursday afternoon, yesterday, around 2:45 pm, I got the call that my mother had passed. She had been in Hospice Care for some time - shoutout here to Heartland Hospice! They were amazing! - and in the past 2 weeks she had definitely declined, and I wanted her to cross over as I knew she would be at peace, but it was still a shock. It's funny the little things that we think about when we grieve. I thought about the fact that she didn't get her slice of coconut cake. It is sitting in the fridge on the shelf, and she didn't get it. She wasn't expecting it. It was just something I saw and picked up because I knew she would love it. I am sure I will have that same thought again when I am out or when I make Carrot cake this Thanksgiving or even next summer when Hanover tomatoes are at their ripest that I should take mom this sandwich or slice of cake, she would love this and then realize she is not there to take anything to....I know I just ended the sentence with a preposition, but today is not about grammar. The point is, we are not guaranteed time with anyone. We will all die someday, that is a fact, we just don't know when. I know it's cliché, but make the most of your time for yourself and the people you love. Like all mothers and daughters we had our issues, but in these last 2 years as roles have been reversed, I have had the time to be with her without all the mess of the world. I would just visit and talk. We'd laugh about Andy Griffith or The Golden Girls or she'd ask me questions about what was going on as we sat there and watched Toy Story, or I'd mock the ridiculous, predictable plot of a Hallmark Channel movie, and she'd laugh. I loved my mom, and I know that she knew that. In fact it's the last thing she said to me when I left her room last Sunday afternoon, and they were also the last words she heard from me. I really can't ask for more than that. I am so glad she is at peace and with my dad, and her parents, and best friend and loving pets, but I know I will never pass by coconut cake again and not think of her, and the uneaten slice in the fridge.