My Last Meal with My Grandfather

Today is 50 weeks since I lost my Grandfather. I'm hit hard with that this afternoon. I am sitting here crying. Listening to the rain hit the skylight and reflecting. I did a little calculating in my head and it occurred to me that the last meal we had together, which is kind of the day I feel like I saw a glimpse of my Grandfather for the last time, was a Sunday morning that officially will be a year ago on Memorial Day. He replied to an email I had sent him asking if he needed anything. I was regularly cooking for him at this point as my Grandmother was occupied enough with just taking care of all his other needs. He wrote back asking me to go to McDonald's...


Hello Car

Thank you for your message, and, gentle concern for my well-being...little or no appetite these days...but I have a suggestion...would you mind
getting a "Big Breakfast" for
Me...tomorrow...at say, about
8:30 a.m.? Pancakes, potato,
Syrup, etc....and a egg McMuffin for Grandmother and yourself? It would help get the day off to a good start...don't ask Grandmother about this...for she would probably cancel the order, and I don't wish for that to happen..
Thanks for your help
Grandfather


This is a part of our last email exchange. I, of course, saw him all the way to the end. And we had a great final afternoon together before he slipped into a coma. He died 10:50am on Jun 10, 2017, a Saturday morning. I was getting dressed to go be with him for the rest of the day. We were told it could be a week before he passed so I was surprised when the phone rang. But I knew.

I knew in that email he knew. This was all he could do. He barely could come to the table to eat. I see him, my six and a 1/2 foot tall giant of a Grandfather hunched over. Barely able to slide his walker across the berber carpet. I am HAUNTED by that image. Whenever people see me crying, I'm inevitably thinking about that. It breaks me to my core. He did it though. For Grandmother and I. The Three Musketeers we called ourselves, since I was little. It was our last meal together out of the thousands we had shared, all over the globe. Not in an exotic locale, not in a beautiful restaurant with amazing culinary fare. In our condo's little kitchen, breakfast from McDonald's, that none of us really felt like eating because we knew.


I will treasure the memory of that breakfast, that morning, for the rest of my life.