~by Heather L.

Recently, I signed up to make a cake as one of the table centerpieces they needed for a Relief Society Celebration social.

The day of the event, I got home at one o’clock in the afternoon, pulled all the ingredients out, and began preparing my masterpiece.

I could see it all now – a cake covered with little flags representing the world-wide sisterhood of Relief Society!

I found a perfect quote to go with it, and printed everything out while the cake was in the oven. I just needed to get it all put together by four o’clock.

A piece of cake, right?!

At two o’clock, the phone rang.

An emergency errand, but that was okay, the cakes were out of the oven, and this would give them time to cool.

A piece of cake!

Ri-i-i-ght!

When I got back, I started to lift the cake out of the pan, and cringed, realizing that it wasn’t going to come out easily. Somehow our family’s cakes never do!

I said a quick prayer and smiled a little as I remembered my mom’s cakes.

I called her while I continued to try to remove the cakes from their pans.

We shared a good laugh about cakes past and present, then said good-bye, and I began trying to frost what had become a crumbly mess.

(This picture is of the “good” side!)

The other side kept falling apart, and finally I did, too.

Great wracking sobs shook my body as I looked at the disaster, and knew I couldn’t fix it.

My teenage daughter came downstairs, concerned at my crying, and put her arms around me – I felt her love and Heavenly Father’s in that tender moment.

Two cans of frosting later, I decided to just cut off that side, frost the rest as well as possible, and call it a Legacy Cake, in memory of our family’s legacy of flopped cakes.

As I did, I remembered that my mother had passed on an even more important legacy than the flops – a legacy of faith, service, and love!

Here is what I wrote to cover the missing cake:

“This is a Legacy Cake.

When I was young, my mother would be asked to bake cakes for Relief Society functions. Knowing her weakness of never being able to get a cake safely out of a pan, she still willingly volunteered as needed.

Sadly, I have inherited her cake-making skill.

But it is with deep gratitude I have also inherited her faith, her desire to serve, her love of the scriptures, her love of Relief Society, and of the Lord. “

Thanks, Mom!