Let's travel back again to the ranch in Ardmore, Oklahoma where the family all met after the death of my ex-husband Mike Deming. The women were a-bustling in the kitchen while the men worked at the barbecue on the patio. As far as the eye could see was endless land, a scrubby plain, with a herd of cattle who kept close to home. You could hear their gentle noises from the house. Sounds travel far on the broad plains. We also saw a brush fire far off to the right, the black smoke curling upward far away. Danger on a ranch in Oklahoma is constant.
But you don't think one of your own will up and die like Mike did. You just don't ever think that.
My daughter Sarah had made a tall three-layer chocolate cake.
"Is there any ice cream around here?" I asked.
"There's some in the fridge, but it's real old," said Donna, Mike's wife. "It's been here since Momma and Daddy died."
I opened the freezer and opened the lid of the Blue Bell Vanilla ice cream. It sparkled with ice crystals. I shut the freezer door.
Sarah had bought berries from the market - huge blackberries the size of your thumb, tiny red raspberries and smaller still blueberries. I pulled those from the fridge, sliced a thin piece of chocolate cake, and covered them with the berries. It looked incomplete.
Then I took out the Blue Bell ice cream and placed it in the sink. With an ice cream scooper, I dug out the cover of ice crystals which acted like a natural preservative protecting the buttery-rich ice cream below.
I liberated the ice cream, tasted it and it was just fine. Just plain delicious.
And that's how we had ice cream n cake that whole weekend long for Mike's funeral. I carried mine around the house in a bowl, eating and talking to people at the same time.
How I wished Mike were there. Read Sarah's post of the 62 Ways she loved her dad. Scroll down and you'll find it.
