Last Suppers

That night I made lamb jardinière for eight. During the cooking, I served Mama her afternoon cocktail of white rum with canned grapefruit juice. I said, “The lamb looks really tender — there were leeks on special too. I was thinking of serving it over rice.” She said, “I won’t be hungry.” My brothers, sister, a nephew and a couple more people showed up around dinnertime. I let them serve themselves in the kitchen, then took a plate with me back to the bedroom. Probably more out of loyalty than hunger, Mama had a bite of lamb, a bite of rice, pause, then a carrot (all enriched by caramelized onion and cream). It was the biggest meal she’d eaten for weeks.

The next morning I shaved off some thin slices of pancetta I’d brought with me, fried them crisp, and brought them on a plate with a soft scrambled egg. Mama ate half of it. At lunch she felt well enough to be scandalized that I’d bought a tiny packet of Roquefort cheese, but when I blended it with cream cheese and dabbed it on Wheat Thins, she ate two, and nibbled at a third. Dinner was again an improvised buffet, whatever I could come up with, but especially Southern cooking. I’d brought a bag of stone-ground grits and some salt-cured country ham, and we had those with slaw and biscuits the second night, again serving family and friends. But when I took her plate to the bedroom, I made sure it was small, not intimidating. She was eating again.

This went on for several days. In the morning, I’d go shopping, come home to start work on dinner; in the afternoon, I’d play accordion for her, then she’d take a nap, and wake up for her cocktail. She felt better enough that we had longer conversations, about her girlhood on a Kentucky tobacco farm, the Green River steamboat she took to go away to teachers college, her “flapper era,” her romance with my father in Louisville (he gave her a new red Duesenberg Roadster), the flood that wiped out Byrd Distillery, the move west during the War, the long years of poverty while I was growing up and a lot of family history I’d never heard.

Mama was getting stronger, and it was decided she could, with my help, actually travel to the doctor’s office. He was amazed; her disease seemed to be in stasis, and he recommended that she do some light exercise in bed. And she decided she wanted to use a portable toilet instead of the bedpan.

In fact, things had improved so much, I called home to tell Beni I was going to stay at least another week, while Mama improved. It was the next day that Mama was about to sit up on the edge of the bed, and suddenly she collapsed with a huge and ultimately fatal aneurism. She never regained consciousness.

I’d evidently provided just enough strength and interest in living for her to exert herself to the point of stroke. On the other hand, she’d had a rare good week: a week she didn’t merely endure, but enjoyed. She had eaten well, reminisced about her life, and — really, for the first time — talked openly with her eldest son. Our always difficult relationship had finally fruited at the close of her life, and I am grateful that I could be there for her, and she for me.

E-mail Joseph at eat.your.spinach@gmail.com

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