What I See
Flour dust hangs in the air like quiet snow. A woman leans over a round cake, her hands steady as she places tiny green leaves with a spatula. Pink roses already bloom on the others behind her. The kitchen is calm, but her eyes don’t look calm. They look like goodbye.
What I Feel
This feels like grief in disguise. Each petal is careful. Each leaf is perfect. She’s not just decorating cake. She’s pouring love into something temporary, knowing it will be eaten and gone in minutes. That’s the heaviest kind of love - the kind that knows it’s the last time.
The Story: "Last Dozen"
She was diagnosed on Tuesday. By Friday, she was in her daughter’s kitchen.
“Teach me,” she whispered, touching the spatula to the frosting. “So when I’m gone, you’ll remember how I made them.”
Her daughter swallowed hard. “Mama, don’t talk like that.”
But the woman just smiled and placed another leaf. “We all leave, my love. But memories? Memories can be sweet. If we make them right.”
One by one, she decorated twelve cakes. Not for a party. For a goodbye she wouldn’t attend.
“See this green?” she said, guiding her daughter’s hand. “Not too much pressure. Just enough to leave a mark. That’s how you love people too.”
The pink roses were for joy. The green leaves were for peace. The flour on the table was for the messiness of living.
When the last cake was finished, she licked frosting off her thumb and winked. “Now you have a thousand words to remember me by. One for every petal.”
She never saw them eaten. But every time her daughter bakes now, the kitchen fills with more than flour. It fills with her.
Because a picture really is worth a thousand words. Sometimes, it’s worth a whole lifetime.
How the prompt led me to this:
The prompt photo shows someone decorating cakes with flowers so carefully, so lovingly. But the focus and tenderness in her hands felt deeper than just baking. It felt like someone creating beauty they won’t be around to see. That’s how “Last Dozen” was born - a story about leaving love behind in edible form.