Spreading love through loss with Sophia Cupcakes

GILLIAN KLAWANSKY

In celebrating her life, Sophia’s parents Adele and Rob Bennett, started Sophia’s Cupcakes, an initiative where people donate cupcakes to those less fortunate throughout July – Sophia’s birthday month.

“Sophia loved birthdays so much,” says Adele. “I used to bake her cakes and we’d always do cupcakes. So, Sophia’s Cupcakes is a way of celebrating her birthday in an uplifting way and expanding it to others who could benefit, even though they’ll never meet her.

“There are so many people who don’t have that much, and we had so much to give, so it’s our way of marking her special day even though she’s no longer with us.”

Participants are encouraged to give cupcakes to children or the elderly, who are ill, don’t have that much, or could do with something to brighten their day.

Sophia – a  little girl who was full of love, kindness and humour – always brought similar joy to those who knew her. She loved spending time with her parents and her little brother Nathan.

“Sophia could light up a room,” says Adele. “She was delightful and full of fun. Sometimes she liked to be quiet and loved to head out with mom for a special drink somewhere pretty.

“She loved to engage with adults and was always listening to what they were saying. She was a child, but she was always an ‘old soul’ – there was just something very wise about her even as a little girl.

Strong-willed, she couldn’t wait to grow up. One day I asked her what she wanted to be and she said, aged five or six: “I don’t want children, I want to do what I want to do when I want to do it. I want to go out for lunch.” Another time, she said: “Boss of the world.”

Sophia was due to go to King David Victory Park Primary in 2015, but had brain surgery in January that year. She spent over eight months in ICU. “As it turned out, Sophia had more courage than any of us would have guessed.

“She fought so hard to stay with u; even the doctors couldn’t explain how she managed to survive strokes and many challenges in hospital,” says Adele. But at the end of September, the cancer had spread and she passed away.

“Before that, she was at Mina Lopato Nursery School where she was incredibly happy,” says Adele. Teachers at the school remember a quiet, happy child who loved art.

“She was lovely little girl, a beautiful child and wonderful to teach. I taught her the year before she died. She was so special to me, cute, and happy. When I visited her at home the day before her operation, she told me: “The doctor says I’ve got a brain tuber,” I’ll never forget that,” says Mina Lopato grade R teacher, Mandy Smerkovitz.

In moving forward, Adele and Rob have learned to take it one day at a time. “I don’t know how you really deal with it, you put one foot in front of the next,” says Adele. “It feels overwhelming, you don’t know how you’re going to come out on the other side, you just continue because you don’t have an option.

“Also, we had our son Nathan. You have to be as solid and calm as possible for your little boy who’s going through unthinkable loss himself. You’ve got to keep things very simple and don’t demand too much of yourself. If you get through the day ok, you’re doing fine.” 

 “You have to have faith that at some point you’ll see the light again – things will get easier.

“The pain is with us at all times, it hasn’t even been two years, but you have pain that coexists with a life force. You don’t realise how strong this life force is until you’re in the middle of something like this.”

Finding strength through brightening the lives of others in Sophia’s memory, has also helped the family. Last year 2 480 cupcakes were shared with kids, mostly in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Sydney and Los Angeles, with donations also coming from London. 

“The support from the community was always wonderful and it’s extended beyond that. I was always amazed how people you don’t know, just take it on board and they run with it. It gives you a sense of a wider humanity.”

The Bennetts leave it to participants to decide where to donate cupcakes that they can either bake or buy. “Just go out and do your thing, find a place and let us know about it,” says Adele. “The wider the net the better.

“I feel that our girl was so special that I just want to leave something of her mark, because she won’t be able to. She was so full of so much potential in so many ways, that it’s just sad that others won’t be touched by her.”

Yet, through Sophia’s Cupcakes, more people than the Bennetts ever thought possible, are spreading doses of Sophia’s magic.

To take part in Sophia’s Cupcakes this month, visit www.facebook.com/SophiasCupcakesSA/.

If you can’t bake your own, visit www.raisingaidan.co.za where a mother – Melissa – bakes and sells cupcakes to raise money to treat her son Aidan who has a rare genetic