Remember The Gum Back in 1995, I wrote a memoir about chewing gum: how it smelled of my grandfather, an evergreen Christmas, snow and fresh cold air; how the sweet-smelling shiny, crinkly, foil wrapper was happiness. And that most of all, gum was the taste, the texture and the scent of Love. I was seven years old back then, in 1968, and would see Mom for the first time since we'd gone into foster care. Of course, our visit was 'supervised'; as though Mom would have taken four children out of the courthouse and spirited us away. I don't think we'd have gotten very far on two packages of gum. I remember that day so well because that was the day I learned what Love was: the day Mom spent her last few cents on a Christmas present. She bought two packages of gum to divide between four children. Lately it's been pretty tough going in our household, you know, the money crunch, the bills coming in, and the 'normal' bickering of four hopelessly screwed up people trying to figure out how to function in society AND live in the same house. Well, today is my Leanndra's birthday. Happy Birthday Sis. And as it turns out, once again, gum has been the catalyst of a joyous memory. Remember how I said that it's been tough going? Like most folks, we're not the wealthiest family on the block, we're just one of the stranger ones who are trying to scrape by. This morning, Leanndra mentioned that she missed having birthday parties, that she hadn't had a birthday party in so long and that she missed the party and cake and ice cream. She seemed so sad. We bought the fixings for a surprise party for her. And of course, we were trying to convince her that she needed to do something so we could make the frosting and frost the cake, which, by the way, was cooling in its pan in the master bathroom on the granite counter top. (We closed the bathroom door so SuSE the cat, our 'royal' taster, wouldn't sample the cake as it cooled.) There was a problem though: Leanndra was quite content sitting at the kitchen table visiting with us. Since we couldn't get her to go to her room discretely, we lied to her. We said Jeff was making fudge (technically it wasn't a lie . . . it was fudge . . . frosting). While Jeff and our neighbor, Rich, kept Leanndra talking, Arriana frosted the cake and was in the process of adding candles. We I lit the candles and rushed through the master bedroom, down the hall and into the kitchen where Leanndra sat with her back to us. Jeff and Rich saw the cake; Leanndra felt the warmth of the flames. Do you know how %% flaming candles look on a single layer round cake? it resembles a flamb