Two Cakes in a Cakewalk

When I was a child, my dad got us a membership to the local YMCA where we would go with him at least every month to (sort of) swim or play basketball. Sometimes they would have little parties on Halloween and other holidays. At one of these parties they had a musical chairs game and the prizes were whole cakes.

This was exciting to me as I had never really won anything that fun, so I was excited to try. During this game I was ecstatic to win two cakes in a row. One was a pink round cake and the other was a yellow cake with chocolate frosting. I was very proud of myself when I was able to take these cakes home and proudly displayed them on the kitchen table. I was going to have to share them with my large family-there were eight of us kids-and that was fine as I wasn't planning to eat them all myself.

But my extreme happiness was short lived when one of my older sisters informed me that I would have to choose a cake to give to my aunt, uncle and cousins who had recently moved to our state. They had just moved out of our house where they had been staying and found an apartment. They were a large family too, with six children. My sister also added that my aunt had just had a miscarriage which did made parting with the cake easier. I barely knew what a miscarriage was but I knew that it was a sad event, though I was upset to give up one of the cakes because I wanted them both. I loved them both in different ways. I loved the chocolate icing on the one cake and the luscious pink roundness of the other. I hesitated because I didn't really want to give either of them up. Nevertheless, I got the feeling there wasn't a choice in this. I had to give up one cake. I ultimately decided to part with the pink one. Though truth be told, there was still a part of me that wanted to keep both cakes, even though I would need to share regardless.

I look back at winning those cakes as a very fond memory because it was happy and festive, even though I had to give up one of them, which was the right thing to do in that instance. Although it does make me think of times in my life when I had to give up things I really wanted for another's benefit, and it was hard, even if it seemed like the best thing at the time. But it isn't always the right choice. Sometimes having what you really want is ok. It isn't always selfish, and it isn't always good to concede to a situation and give up your own happiness. Sometimes having your heart's desire is the right thing, because everyone's happiness matters, including yours.