April 15th 2014

She made cupcakes.

There was something about that act that surprised me. Not the act necessarily. I mean my mom will bake for any given reason. And she desperately wanted some bonding time with my daughter and cupcakes seemed like the way to do that.

It's just the day she picked to make them. April 15th, his birthday.

She had a valid reason. It was his birthday after all. Just because he wasn't here to enjoy it didn't mean it wasn't worth celebrating with cupcakes.

I'd never thought of it that way. Could never have thought of it that way before. There was too much heartache there to celebrate with freshly baked sweet foodstuffs. But that simple act made that day something else.

We took most of the cupcakes to George Mark House. I dropped them off at the Nurse's station, because I felt they'd get the most out of it and are the most deserving. It's their heart and devotion to the patients of George Mark house that keep the place going. I'm hoping my favorite nurse was working the PM shift last night and that he got to have a cupcake and it made him smile.

We also took a few other things to George Mark House. My mother made a quilt for them. She makes one per year for the house. Sometimes it gets auctioned off at their annual fall gala. Other times the house actually uses it. They have two apartments that families can live in while their child stays at George Mark House and once they put one of my mother's quilts in the apartment bedroom, a thought that still makes me smile.

We also dropped off a Safeway gift card of $100. That was the money from Ukiah's Piggy Bank plus a little extra. That's a $100 dollars of overhead they don't need to think about any more. Ukiah's piggy bank did that.

It's not much. I was once told it takes $700 per day per child to run George Mark House. If you round that up due to inflation and say it's $1000, it doesn't do hardly enough, but it is something. And I consider all the incredible tweets and awareness raising my friends online helped me do this year a lot of something. And I thank you deep down from the bottom of my heart.

Thanks to you, more people know about George Mark House and the good they do. Thanks to you, more people know about my son Ukiah and the legacy he's left in his stead. And that's huge! I'll be updating my list of supporters, all those of you who tweeted and retweeted soon to show my appreciation for what you did.

April 5th and 15th weren't easy days. They never are or are going to be, but thanks to you, and the good you did, the were better. So much better.

The cupcakes helped. Cupcakes help everything.