Bon Apetit

Last Thursday, Mama and me went to see Granny. Mama tries to make it down at least one day a week to feed her lunch so that my aunt, who lives nearby, doesn’t have to. They can’t rely on the nursing home staff to grind her food properly or take enough time to see that she eats as much as she should. They have too many patients, and she takes a good half-hour to 45 minutes to feed.

I hadn’t seen her for several years, so I was prepared for the worst. And walking in, I realized that all nursing homes, no matter what they call them or how nice they make the reception area, are the same. Once you get past the lobby, they all look and sound and smell the same: the wallpaper and nicely framed prints in the halls do nothing to cancel out the random cries and grunts or the smell of a bathroom that hasn’t been properly cleaned.

Granny’s room is about halfway down a long hall and then at the end of another shorter one, so I had plenty of time to soak up the atmosphere before we got there.

Then I walked into her room. She shares it with a lady named Marie who’s had some strokes, so she can’t do much more than laugh or make monosyllabic sounds when she’s afraid. Granny’s not much better off, but there was no mistaking the two of them.

At 89, her cheeks are still rosy-red, her eyes—though not vibrant like I knew—still striking, and she has less grey hair than me. Instead of being tinged with auburn from being in the sun like it used to be, it now has pieces of white and grey. And her lack of teeth only emphasizes her strong chin.

Mama fed her lunch, after grinding up the creamed corn that she didn’t approve of (she takes a portable food processor when she goes), and Granny ate like a farm boy, as if the sense of taste is one of the last she has left. Corn, green beans, mashed potatoes, chicken and lemon icebox pudding. Plus iced tea, cranberry juice and milk.

Maybe it was my imagination, but she seemed to savor the tastes. They were all things she grew up eating and ate all her life. In fact, she didn’t seem to care so much for the chicken, but she had grown up eating mostly vegetables with a smaller amount of meat. And unless they let her have hog jowl, I don’t think she’ll get excited about much except the vegetables and the desert.

In her day, Granny never knew how many people would show up for lunch: could be 5 or it could be 25. Still, she always had more than enough. Mostly things that she and Grandpa had grown or that she had baked. She’s the only woman I’ve ever known that could, at a moment’s notice, bring out 4 or 5 cakes and pies that just needed to thaw for a bit before they were just like fresh-baked. (Her red velvet cake was to die for, by the way.)

These days, other people have to feed her. If there is a part of her that is still aware, I know that she hates it. It was always her job to feed everyone, one that she always did without fail.

Mama says that she thinks that sometimes Granny knows where she is and how debilitated she is. Mama says that sometimes she responds like she knows what’s going on around her and with her.

I hope not. Just for her sake. I want her to keep on eating and enjoying the food she loves.

And if the taste of a good meal is the last thing she takes to her grave, so be it.

It’s only fitting that a woman who fed so many people in her life be able to enjoy food even when she doesn’t recognize much else.

My wish is that she go on with the taste of something good lingering on her palate.

Afterwards, she can make St. Peter a real Southern meal that would clog his arteries, if saints had arteries to clog.

And after he had feasted and tried to thank her, she’d just grin and say, “It wasn’t nothing. But glad you liked it.”

Even St. Peter will be charmed.

This time, he'll have to stand in line.