A week ago today my great aunt died at age 92. Didn’t know her very well, but she was a wonderful person and had a great sense of humor. She was also pretty blunt.

Her husband died years ago, about a week before they were going to celebrate their wedding anniversary. Aunt Jo decided that they would have a party to celebrate their anniversary and also celebrate her husband’s life.

So she went to the bakery to get a sheet cake for the party. And the woman taking her order asked what writing she wanted on the cake. Aunt Jo just said she wanted it to be blank.

Which, you know, makes sense.

But the woman persisted. They had never made a blank cake for an anniversary party and she thought this one should be no exception. She wanted to know what to put on the cake. And still Aunt Jo said no. She wanted a blank cake.

After arguing back and forth about it for awhile, Aunt Jo relented and told her to write “Sorry you didn’t make it, Dear.”

The cake was blank.