DADE CITY, Fla. — When Emily Porter’s happy baby boy, Anakin, dug into his smash cake Sunday, Porter and her family had more to celebrate than the child’s first birthday party.
They also celebrated the loving act of kindness that made Anakin’s birthday cake possible.
“There is good out there. People are still good. You know, the holiday season — this is exactly what it’s about,” Porter said. “It gives goosebumps. It brings tears. It’s emotional.”
The story begins at the Publix on U.S. 301 in Dade City. There, Porter showed up hours before the party to pay for her son’s pre-ordered birthday cake.
Admittedly, the trip to the grocery store was fraught with anxiety because the paycheck of the new mom — who’s a math teacher at a private school in Pasco County — was stretched to the max.
“Honestly, my thought process going in was I have this set amount of money for this cake and the rest of the week, and that’s it,” she said. “Things are really tight. So having to plan a first birthday party and get the gifts and then have everything ready for Christmas right there after, it’s been really stressful. There have been lots of tears.”
But, when she walked up to the bakery counter to ask for her son’s finished cake, she discovered a surprise that brought her a different type of tears.
A stranger had paid for the cake.
“I had a whole meltdown in the middle of the Publix bakery,” Porter remembered. “It was just everything I had hoped and prayed for in that moment — in that week.”
The stranger also left behind an unsigned note.
“Happy birthday,” the note read. “We wanted to purchase your cake for you in honor of our daughter, Maci Emma. Happy holidays and God bless.”
Porter took to the “Zephyrhills, Dade City community” page on Facebook, where she posted a thankful message to the unknown stranger and a picture of Anakin enjoying the cake.
To her surprise a fellow mom wrote back and revealed she was behind the kind act.
In an interview with ABC Action News, that mom, “Kristen,” did not want her identity fully revealed but did want to share the motivation behind the generosity: her daughter, Maci Emma.
Maci died at just five weeks old from leukemia that went undetected.
“I didn’t know that my daughter was sick, and we didn’t know anything was wrong during the pregnancy,” Kristen said. “We didn’t know until two days before she passed away that anything was wrong with her.”
To this day, both of Maci’s parents still struggle with the loss.
Pictures of the infant are hung proudly and prominently on their home’s walls. When they go out of town, they buy special trinkets to place near the urn that holds Maci’s ashes. And on each Dec. 9 — which was Maci’s birthday — they honor their late child with balloon releases, flowers, and other special ceremonies.
Last year, however, Maci’s father got an idea.
“Why don’t we try to help somebody else?” Kristen remembers her husband saying.
Last year, on what would have been Maci’s sixth birthday, they went to the Dade City Publix and covered the cost of a pre-ordered birthday cake for a random family.
This year, they did it again, but instead of buying just one cake, they committed to buying seven on what would have been Maci’s seventh birthday. They plan to buy some at the Dade City Publix and others at the Winn-Dixie and Walmart in Zephyrhills.
The couple also committed to praying for each of the seven children.
“Health is the number one thing that I pray for,” said Kristen. “That that child grows up and gets to see that sixth and seventh and eighth birthday.”
Anakin, who turned one on Wednesday, was one of this year’s recipients of that love.
“Her family and her daughter will be a part of my son’s first birthday forever,” said Porter, Anakin’s mom. “I know that I will be paying this forward as soon as I can.”
Meanwhile, Kristen and her husband will continue to bless families with their late daughter’s love, and that love will continue to grow as Maci grows older in Heaven.
“She’ll turn eight next year,” Kristen said. “I’ll buy eight cakes.”
