Today I’m going to bake a carrot cake for Parrish. Parrish loves carrot cake, and tomorrow is her birthday.

The recipe comes from The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Book of Desserts.

I’ll start by grating 2 cups of carrots.

While I grate the carrots, I’ll start thinking about the last time I baked a cake the day before Parrish’s birthday. On that day, while I baked a cake and did all sorts of errands in anticipation of celebrating Parrish’s birthday, unbeknownst to me three of my friends were undergoing emergency surgery in various hospitals around L.A. County.

Next, I’ll grease and flour 2 standard 9-inch cake pans.

Last year on the night I baked a cake for Parrish’s birthday, Jen got a call from our friend Asia. She was in a hospital somewhere way out in the San Fernando Valley. She, her boyfriend Jeremy, and our friend Laura had been rear-ended the night before as they drove back down the 5 to L.A. from Bakersfield. [Nota bene: This Jeremy is not the Jeremy who writes for The Great Whatsit.]

Sift and mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl: 3 cups of flour, 2½ cups of sugar, 1 T baking soda, 1 T cinnamon, 1 t salt.

Details were sketchy and slow to get cleared up over the next few months — was it a truck or a car that hit them? were they pushed under a truck by another car? did the driver have insurance? All we knew that night was that Asia had a cracked pelvis and various other injuries, Jeremy was in County General with head and neck injuries, and Laura was in a third hospital even farther away. She had massive internal injuries and broken bones, and was being kept in a coma to prevent her from thrashing around and hurting herself more. Asia asked if we could pick Jeremy up from County and bring him to see her the next day. He was going to be discharged, but there was no one to pick him up. Of course we said yes.

In another large bowl, I’ll lightly beat 4 eggs and mix in the other liquid ingredients: 1½ cups of vegetable oil and 1 t vanilla extract.

We brought some clothes and shoes to Jeremy on the morning of Parrish’s birthday. It took a few hours to clear County General’s paperwork and red tape; Jeremy was pretty doped up, but he was still in a great deal of pain. He managed to make a few jokes while we waited in the Patient Financial Services office. It was good to see that he still had his sense of humor, but we had little idea about what lay ahead.

By the time we left the hospital, we weren’t really in the mood to celebrate and also realized that we wouldn’t have the time to finish preparing for Parrish’s party. I distinctly remember phoning her from the ward from which we were springing Jeremy. I think they made him get in a wheelchair, but I could be wrong.

Mix the wet ingredients in with the dry; add the carrots, 2 cups of chopped walnuts, and 1 cup of apple sauce. Apple sauce is the real key to this recipe. It adds both moisture and heft to the batter.

On our way up the 5 to see Asia, Jeremy drifted off to sleep intermittently in the backseat. He was having a hard time of it though, because of the neck brace he was wearing. I could tell that his body just wanted to shut down for a while, but he really wanted to see Asia. When we got to our second hospital of the day, there were already a few other friends visiting Asia and she was running on painkillers and adrenalin. She kept trying to make sure that everyone else was comfortable, urging them to sit down on her bed (there weren’t enough chairs in the room), offering them water, cracking jokes, etc. She took and made a series of phone calls to friends and family, tossing information and breezy conversation in five directions intermittently.

Beat well and distribute evenly between the cake pans.

We stayed in Asia’s room for a few hours, but were pretty exhausted ourselves, having been up half the night before calling other friends and trying to track down Laura’s family to make sure they were in the know. I kept marveling at Asia’s energy. I didn’t realize at the time how much of it was due to narcotics. Jen and I left Jeremy at the hospital, first making sure that he had a ride home with someone else.

Bake at 325ºF for about 40 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cakes comes away clean. Allow the cakes to set in the pans for about 10 minutes, then turn them out onto wire racks to cool.

Over the last year, all three have made great improvements, but all three are still to some real degree recovering. None of them has worked since then, though Jeremy has picked back up the music composition program he had just started when the accident happened. Asia and Jeremy didn’t have health insurance at the time of the accident — he’d just been laid off, and she had quit her job a few weeks before — so there have been and will be great struggles with medical bills. (The owner of the car did have insurance, so that will help somewhat. However, the driver (a friend of his) skipped out of the country after he was released from jail.) Their physical ailments linger and they continue various treatments. Only a couple weeks ago Jeremy confessed that it’s still hard for him to hold a guitar (his first instrument and real passion) for more than five minutes at a time. His back begins to spasm after that. Asia’s short-term memory is still not right. Characteristically, she makes jokes about it all the time.

While Laura was the worst off physically, she was well-insured through her teaching job. After weeks on a respirator, then some time in a rehab center, then months with a live-in caregiver, she is living at home on her own. The last time I saw her, a few months ago, her speech was still slurred and she was not completely steady, but she continues to improve.

Ice with cream cheese frosting: beat 12 ounces softened cream cheese, 1/2 cup butter, 1 T lemon juice and 1½ t vanilla until smooth; gradually beat in confectioners’ sugar to taste (the recipe calls for 5½ cups, but I use about 2½ or 3 at the most).

Let us now be thankful for friends.