Just Stop Already

Friends of ours from church are going through a hard time. Her mother had Alzheimer's, and they had finally given up on caring for her (after a long, hard time) and moved her out to California with her son. His sister had end-stage breast cancer. All of this was going on in the months leading up to Christmas.

And now, since New Year's, her mother has died, his sister died, her uncle died (unexpectedly), and they had to have their dog put to sleep.

My heart is breaking for them.

She had called me before Christmas, distraught, because her mother was failing and she didn't know what to do when she died. Mom was there, but had lived here for 40 years, but the body would be there, and how do you get it here... clearly other issues going on but she's the type that needs everything arranged and organized to feel in control. So we talked about memorial services and options, etc. I'm not sure why she called me in particular, except that she knew my dad died 5 years ago, so perhaps I had the most recent experience?

Long story short, the memorial service for her mom is tomorrow. She asked John and I to deal with A/V equipment to show a DVD at the service, so that's all set up. Another woman in the church ferreted out that she had people coming back to the house afterwards, and she'd gotten sandwiches, etc. - but no desserts. So a couple of us are baking for her.

I made what I was hoping would be a lovely orange chiffon cake. It was cooling, per instructions, upside down on a bottle. 30 minutes into the 1 hour cool - I realized my lovely orange chiffon cake had fallen out of the pan and was in pieces on the countertop.

Ok, it's 10:30pm, the service is at 11am tomorrow. Now what?

Fortunately, I had another box of cake mix. Several dozen minicupcakes are now cooling on the racks and will get a dollop of frosting tomorrow morning.

I just need it to stop already.