“Dad, would you eat some chicken for lunch?” I asked.
Stony silence and a wrinkled nose.
“How about some bacon and eggs?”
He shook his head and stuck his tongue out at me.
I know he has no appetite, but we’re trying to get at least some food into him. His doctors say to let him eat whatever he wants. The problem is, he never wants anything, and couldn’t tell us if he did. I rummaged through Mom’s refrigerator and found thick-sliced bologna. That brought back memories.
“Dad, how about a jungle lunch? That sounds good.”
He at least looked up at me with something close to a smile.
When I was a kid, we spent hours driving dusty back roads along creeks and rivers. Sometimes we’d fish, sometimes we’d wade the shallows, mostly we were just riding around, but we always had a picnic. Dad called it jungle lunch, and he’d pack it into his rusty metal icebox to keep it cool until we got hot and tired and hungry. We’d share a grape soda or a root beer, and eat bologna, cheese, and crackers, usually on the tailgate of his pickup truck. It was a feast.
I cut bologna and cheese into small pieces, piled crackers on the plate and grabbed the Miracle Whip. Sitting beside him, I spread Miracle Whip on crackers. I placed a piece of cheese on one and bologna on another, stuck them together, and handed it to him. The spread kept everything together when he turned it upside down.
“Remember us eating jungle lunch at the creek?”
“I sure do,” he said. That’s more response than we usually get.
I kept an assembly line going, spreading and stacking as he ate, while I talked about those trips down dusty roads, and parking under the shade of giant oaks.
“I’ve probably ate more bologna sitting on a tailgate than anywhere else combined. It tastes better there, doesn’t it?”
Dad chuckled. “Yeah.”
He ate almost two whole slices of bologna before telling me he’d had enough. And he was more alert and engaged than he usually is for a meal. I consider that a good day. Will we be able to repeat it tomorrow, or ever? Highly unlikely. But we take whatever good we can at this stage.
We both enjoyed the quick trip down memory lane for our jungle lunch. I wonder if my brother could mount a tailgate on the porch.
Beautiful, Kim.