This morning the whole family got up early, packed into the car and headed downtown to St. Vincent de Paul, a shelter for the homeless. We went as part of a group from our church; my daughter had done this twice before, with her youth group, but it was the first time for me, my husband and our son. I kept expecting my daughter to back out at the last minute--she has an insanely hard class schedule this year, and a crazy practice schedule with marching band--but she never once suggested that she was too tired to get up and go. In fact, she was up before my son this morning (and I'm fairly certain that's a first.)
We arrived about 10:30 and got busy preparing lunch. My job was to cut up cakes and pies, all of them donated by a local grocery store chain. The desserts were only one day past their sell-by date, but looking at them--soggy, crumbling pie crusts, cakes with sprinkles bleeding into frosting that peeled away from the layers--I couldn't help but think that these were things my kids would just refuse to eat. They have that luxury. I stood over trays full of broken pie and disintegrating cake and thought, "We can't give people food that looks like this."
But when people made their way through the line, no one complained about the condition of the desserts. Most people, in fact, marveled at the selection. The chocolate cake went first; lemon meringue pie was a big hit, too. When I brought out a tray full of pumpkin pie slices, one woman rolled her eyes in disbelief. "You have no idea how I've been craving pumpkin pie this week," she said. "I saw it on a sign at Bill Miller."
I thought, then, about the pumpkin pie I'd baked for my daughter's birthday a week ago--because pumpkin pie is her favorite thing, and easy to make. I almost bought one from Costco, thinking myself too busy with the work of an ordinary week, but at the last minute I decided to drive to the store and get the ingredients to bake a pie instead. My daughter wanted pumpkin pie for her birthday, so that's what she would have; there was no question whether wanting would lead to having. That's just the way our life works, most of the time.
Not long after that, a little girl came through the line with her mother. "Hello, sweet girl," I said. "What would you like?"
She eyed the dessert tray, clearly overwhelmed by her choices. "Hurry up and pick," her mother said. "You're holding up the line."
"I can't decide," she said. "I want one of those football rings, but they're in the chocolate cupcakes. I want the vanilla cupcake with the red balloon on top."
The solution to this problem seemed obvious: I pulled a plastic football ring out of a chocolate cupcake and handed it to her, along with a white cupcake. The little girl looked up at me as though I'd just performed a miracle--no water turning into wine, to be sure, but wanting had suddenly been transformed into having. This was clearly not the way her life worked.
Her mother thanked me before they moved on and found a place to sit. A little later, a young man asked me for a piece of chocolate cake--but after I'd put it on his tray, he said "Oh, no . . . I didn't see that pumpkin pie you got there."
"You want the pumpkin pie?" I asked. He nodded, so I put a slice on his tray. He paused for a moment, apparently waiting for me take back the cake. "It's all right," I said. "Just take them both."
He gave me a look that indicated this was not the usual procedure, but I shrugged. What the heck. Plenty of people had passed by the dessert trays altogether--I was only letting him have what they hadn't wanted.
Just before closing time, the kitchen manager called seconds and several people came back through the line to load up their trays again. A teenage boy came by to ask for another piece of chocolate cake; he reminded me of my son, shy and soft-spoken, with thick hair and dark eyes.
"You want mine too?" his mother asked.
"You don't want it?"
"I don't need cake," she said, and then she looked at me. "Is that okay? Can he have my piece of cake?"
I swallowed the lump in my throat and nodded before I gave him the two biggest pieces on my tray. Then I noticed the cupcake girl lingering near the drink station, showing off her football ring. I gave her a wink and a thumbs-up, and she flashed me a smile before she ran back to her mother.
After the dining room had closed, we cut up desserts for the evening meal. We loaded nine trays with cakes and pies, wrapped them in plastic and left them for this evening's volunteers. Then we wiped down the counters and turned in our aprons. The kitchen manager gave each of my kids a bottle of Yoohoo, to thank them for helping out, and we all walked out the back door and into our regular lives. We drove home in our air-conditioned car, hot and sweaty and tired but knowing we were headed for showers in our own bathrooms and a lunch of our own choosing.
Tonight I will sleep in my own bed, in a house that I'm buying, between sheets I chose for myself, surrounded by walls painted a color I picked out. My life belongs to me in a way many people will never have the chance to experience. This is a fact I may have acknowledged for the first time today. I owe a debt of gratitude to that little girl with the football ring--to all the people at that shelter, really--for showing me that having follows wanting for only a lucky few of us, and I am lucky beyond all reason.
