08/26/2026
Today would have been my grandma's 93rd birthday. 🤍
It's her first birthday since she went Home to Jesus in January, and I knew I wanted to find some way to celebrate her today.
So, naturally, I made a strawberry cake.
Because if you knew Grandma, you knew there was absolutely no such thing as too many strawberries. Strawberry ice cream with strawberry sauce and fresh strawberries was a perfectly reasonable dessert in her house. And sometimes we'd add strawberry cake or strawberry cookie pieces, because apparently three forms of strawberry simply weren't enough. 🍓
But today, I got to share her cake with more than 60 people gathered together with a common purpose: working toward a community where every child has a safe and stable place to call home.
And I can't think of a more fitting group of people to celebrate her with.
Her name was Thelma. I called her Grandma, but she was like a mom. She helped raise my sisters and I, loved us, protected us, believed in us, and sacrificed more for us than I think I'll ever fully understand.
She was a steady constant. She made us safe. She made sure we knew we were loved.
And she didn't only do that for us.
Grandma absolutely loved loving people.
For so many children and adults in our community, she was the person you could call when you needed somewhere to go, something to eat, someone to love you, or simply a place where you could show up exactly as you were and know there would be room for you.
She was a safe place.
Long before I had the words to understand what that meant, she showed me what it looked like for an adult to step into the gap for a child and say:
You have a home. You're safe. You're loved. I've got you.
And I get to live as the adult that child became because someone did that for me.
Grandma is also the person who taught me how to bake. The table where she taught me still sits in my bakery today. So much of what I get to do now—feeding people, loving people through food, and even Sweet Indulgence itself—has pieces of her woven throughout it.
Today, I got to take something she taught me, make something she would have absolutely loved, and share it with a room full of people committed to giving children the same kind of safety and love she spent her life giving to others.
Since Grandma went Home, I've been trying to find places to put all of the love and gratitude I still have for her.
Today, I put some of it into a strawberry cake.
And then I shared it. ❤️
Happy 93rd Birthday, Grandma.
I miss you more than I could ever put into words. Thank you for being my home, my safe place, and for teaching me what it means to love people well.
I hope Heaven has strawberries.
Lots and lots of strawberries. 🍓🤍
