The Splattered Platter

"I think of you when I make fudge and place it on a platter;

 Remember when I served your fudge and how that plate did splatter."

For daddy - Father's Day 1982

It's a well-known fact in our circle of family and friends.  My daddy loved to make fudge and people raved about how good it was.

I'll always remember a Sunday afternoon when I was three.  We had company and daddy went into the kitchen and made a batch of fudge.  Little Miss Prisspot me thought I should be the one who served the candy. I insisted on carrying the glass plate into the living room where they were visiting.

To this day I can still hear the sound of the plate as it hit the floor and splattered into many pieces.

My Father's Day gift to daddy in 1982 was a poem.  It included the things in my life that made me thnk of him - buying crayons and toothpaste (items he thought I needed way too often) and the day my stubbornness was the cause of ruining not just a platter but a good batch of candy.

35 years later one word stands out  - that word is splatter.

Just a few weeks after I had written that Father's Day message, daddy and I sat on the swing on our family's back porch.

This time it was my heart that was splattered.

My children and I were moving to Florida.  It was a very strange and painful time. I had been convinced that I could fix what was broken.  I was shattered.  I had failed. I felt like that broken plate and ruined fudge was a metaphor of my life.

I don't remember daddy's reaction when I broke that plate as a three-year-old.  I just remember how I felt when it happened.  I do remember daddy's reaction that afternoon in the swing.  He just kept saying, "Everything's gonna be all right," encouraging me that I was going to survive.

A glass platter has to be replaced.  Fortunately, a broken spirit can be repaired. Love and friendship, financial assistances and much tender loving care was offered That and the faith that had been instilled in me as a child were the tools for survival.  And today I can look back over those 35 years and see not just survival but success.

You would think I learned my lesson.  Yet still, sometimes I am just sure that I have everything under control only to be met with one of those crash and burn experiences.  AND even though my daddy is no longer with us physically, I am always calmed and encouraged when I am sure I hear

"Everything's gonna be all right!"

May your life be filled with enough sunshine

to make you appreciate the shadows