A Birthday and A Farewell for J


I'm so grateful to be surrounded by loving family and friends and to see one of them leaves is a sad experience. Some people say that you'll get used to it to see people leave to the point that you won't feel sad anymore. Well, it doesn't happen to me, maybe not yet. I still remember crying like a baby at the airport everytime I say goodbye to the person I cared the most a long time ago, and even though we met and said goodbye again a few times a year, I still couldn't get used to it, it was rather embarrassing to not be able to control the tears and having one of the airport person trying to cheer me up sometimes, but hey I was still a kid a few years ago and it happens to everyone, right? :). It gets a lot better now, I'm not a crying baby anymore, but I still can't get over the feeling of loss everytime I say goodbye, which is why I always try to avoid going to the airport to see them for the last time. I'd rather take it as "they just leave temporarily and I'm still going to see them soon".


My friend, J, who I've known for several years now was going back to Indonesia for good. To describe him, he is such a kind-hearted person, for real. I don't think I've ever seen him mad and I think everyone would agree with me. He's really tall and is a basketball snob and really good at it too. He's willing to help anyone in need anytime you need it, and to lose such a friend is a great loss for us. Well, I guess I should revise that, we're not losing him as a friend, but losing him in our community. I hope we'd still see each other when he visits or when I go back to Indonesia for vacation.


He left just one day after his birthday and we had a small gathering with close friends to celebrate it and to say goodbye. The gathering turned out to bring a really good news with his engagement announcement with his years-long girlfriend (one of our friends too)! I re-made this exotic cake for the birthday occasion since the first one was for different group of people. I had to make some sacrifices to the cake being different than the one I made before due to time limitation, but at least it came together as a cake :). The pineapple wasn't as ripe as I wanted to be before I used it, but I had too anyway, making the cake a bit sour in my opinion, but nothing major.


So, instead of being all sad and all, we celebrated the friendship we've had and the time we've had together. We are so blessed to know him and we wish him the best for his future in Indonesia or wherever he might be. I'll see you next time J and Happy Birthday! :)


7 comments:

S said...

your site is just so beautiful. lots of gorgeous stuff here. are you self-taught? as an engineer, it's so admirable that you find time to do this. you havent been to a pastry school? beautiful, beautiful cakes. x shayma

Hannah @HannahHandmade said...

Ohh! This looks amazing!

Anonymous said...

Is there a way to convert your recipe to cups???

Bertha said...

Anonymous: There's a website to convert them, but personally, i wouldn't recommend using cups other than volume measurement. It is a lot more precise using grams

fortheloveoffun said...

I am new to baking, I have only been doing it for a few months. But truly love doing it. Your work is absolutely breathtaking. I would be more than delighted to try making this cake, but I cannot seem to find the recipe? could I perhaps get the link to the previous blog post? I am unsure which one it is haha.
On a totally different note, I must add that I love your blogging, it is very personal, but fun to read. Thank you so much for your posts!

Bertha said...

fortheloveoffun: This cake has I think about 7 components in it and when I posted it, I didn't have time to type it all. I usually post the components inside though (this cake is a remake of the same cake before so you can see the previous post), so if you can find recipe for individual components, it would work too

fortheloveoffun said...

Thanks so much Bertha! I really appreciate it!! :)