A teen came up with a sweet gesture to make sure her mother’s birthday would not go unacknowledged in the wake of a tough anniversary.
On March 27, Amanda Moehring, an associate professor in the Department of Biology at Western University and London, Ontario resident, shared a tweet about an idea her teenage daughter Genevieve helped bring to fruition.
Moehring, a mother of three, lost her husband Tom suddenly on March 26, 2020 — which happens to be the day before her birthday. In the wake of her grief, Moehring hasn’t been up for celebrating the past few years.
“My husband died three years ago, almost exactly,” Moehring tells TODAY.com. “Obviously that first year, that day was … we were just in shock and it was awful. And then the next year, the kids asked if I wanted to celebrate, and I was like, ‘I just can’t. There’s no part of me that feels like celebrating the anniversary of his death.”
Moehring's trio of daughters, who range in ages from 10 to 18-years-old, honored her wishes the first couple of years, but this year, 14-year-old Genevieve had an idea.
“My bday is the day after my husband’s death, so I haven’t been up for celebrating the past couple of years,” wrote Moehring in a tweet that has been viewed almost 350,000 times.
“Today my 14yo wanted to salvage the day by making me a cake, while acknowledging the day’s crappiness,” she continued. “I bring you the DUMPSTER FIRE BIRTHDAY CAKE. Best. Cake. Ever!!”
Reaction to her tweet — and the cake — was universally positive, with other folks taking to the comments to share their own experiences.
“Today is my son’s birthday and tomorrow is the anniversary of my husband’s death. Widow to widow and teenager to teenager — we fully approve of this magnificent cake,” wrote one user on Twitter, finishing by wishing Moehring a happy birthday.
“This is wonderful. So many hugs. To you and your wise, funny, and talented 14 year old,” wrote another, adding “may I borrow this idea? It stings a bit less now, but my birthday is Sept 11.”
“Happy birthday. You’ve raised a wonderful human,” wrote another user, adding a heart emoji.
For Moehring, comedy is a path to healing. She tweeted in the thread that her kids joked that they should sing “Crappy birthday to you,” before she blew out the chocolate cake, set up with a whopping 35 candles deeply set into the top to achieve the “dumpster on fire” effect.
Moehring says that the idea came to her daughter last fall who was just 13 at the time. Tweeting at the time about the idea, she told her daughter that she felt like any birthday celebration needed to have some sort of acknowledgement of the day before.
“How about if we make a dumpster fire cake?” said Genevieve at the time, according to Moehring, who says she helped a little with the sheet cake’s construction. “Sort of ironically, the dumpster fire cake was itself a bit of a dumpster fire because it really fell apart right after I took a photo, but it was delicious. So that’s what matters most.”
Moehring says that it was helpful to find a way to wrap the memory of her husband into the experience of making this unique cake with her daughter.
“By making it, for me, through humor and acknowledging that there’s this extra bad thing that’s part of the day, that it’s OK,” Moehring continues. “We’re just going to make that part of the celebration too.”
Now that the pair of days has come and gone for another year, Moehring can reflect on the day.
“I was thinking how it felt like it was OK, like it felt like it was the right thing to be doing on this particular birthday, in our own slightly twisted way. It felt really good. It felt it was touching to do that with her. It was really lovely,” Moehring says. “I think this may become an annual tradition.”
