Wanda's Pretty on the Inside

I have a tree full of ripe apples in my backyard.

I also have a $2,000 fundraising deficit to fill.

Putting those two ideas together, I invited a friend over on Sunday to help me make some apple pies and apple butter for a Team in Training bake sale fundraiser. She had the apple butter recipe, and I was to crank out as many pies as I can.

As we were working (she, peeling, coring and slicing; me, rolling out crust after crust), we chatted and shared stories. She asked me how Team in Training was going, and I told her.

Then there was a heavy pause.

"You know my mom has myeloma, right?" she asked quietly.

Myeloma is a blood cancer included in the far-too-many blood cancers that The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society fights through patient support and research. Therefore, it's one of the blights I'm raising money (and running) to help.

I asked her mom's name. "Wanda," she told me.

"Then we'll call these 'Wanda Pies'," I decided.

But my crusts were not behaving well, and required a lot of patchwork fixes. The top crusts looked battered, and the edges ... I'd rather not claim them. "Rustic" was the word my friend used. I called them ugly, and noted that they wouldn't be winning any beauty contests.

"We'll call them 'Wanda's Pretty on the Inside Pies'," I joked. And the name stuck.

The name works on another level. As my friend's mother's cancer progresses, getting around is becoming a little bit more difficult. She's become self-conscious about needing more help to get around. While her appearance hasn't changed and her daughters still find her beautiful, her perception has.

I imagine that, like my pies, Wanda is also pretty on the inside. So the name sticks.

If you'd like to support people like Wanda without buying a pie, please visit http://pages.teamintraining.org/sj/nikesf09/smillergl9. No amount is too small to help.