The Last Supper

What would you choose for your last meal if you knew the world was ending tomorrow?
I think for mine, I'd start with fajitas...moving on to goulash with breadcrumb-pasta and a side of scalloped rosemary potatoes, and to finish...well...probably everything sweet ever invented...a whoremongous icrecream sundae the size of a small child, more cake than you could comfortably conceive, a kind of spiky croquenbouche of canolis...and a whole pan of d's gorgeous cornbread, all washed down with litres of ice-cold cherry Diet Coke.

I mention all this for a couple of reasons. Firstly of course...today is *cough, cough* Judgment Day, apparently. I was quite happy to laugh at this quietly until the news reports started coming in about the woman arrested for trying to kill her children and herself to escape "The Tribulation" that's apparently to come. Once tomorrow's over with, and the End spectacularly fails to come, I think we should charge the Armaggeddonists as accessories to attempted murder.

But I'm also mentioning this because last night was...well, our last night, here in New York, so everything had a final feel to it. We stayed and d fed Rita her dinner again, and again she ate it all. So the "Last Supper" we saw her eat was tuna mac and salad, vegetable soup and ice cream. In the event that we don't make it back here again before Rita passes, and although it absolutely won't be the last supper she eats, it'll be the one we always picture that way. Our last supper of this trip was in two parts - we stopped off for a half pizza sub, split between us, then went back to the house, for barbecue - burgers and hot dogs and baked beans, oh my...

Leaving Rita this time was unbearably hard. As usual, she fell asleep just after dinner, and we took her down to see Larry, who was also pretty drowsy. We stayed with them a while, and it seemed like we'd be leaving them together when we left...and that would have been at least OK, and picturesque. But then Rita said she'd like to go to bed. And it would have been unavoidable that our last view of her, certainly for this trip, would have been of her tiny frail spasming body, dwarfed in sheets and in an unrousable slumber. We'd called in earlier to see if Josie Arcadipane was up and about, but she'd had a bad day herself, and was asleep. But like a gift from providence, or coincidence, or a god if you believe in them, as we went down the corridor to Rita's room, we passed Josie's door again, and found her up, and bright, and with John for company. We wheeled her in, and for that moment, she was bright herself, and animated and laughing - the Arcadipane Factor making itself felt again. And so, while leaving her and walking out the door feels horrible, it doesn't really feel like that's what we did. It feels right, leaving her there among the Arcadipanes...like leaving her among a garden of the best and brightest flowers, warmed and brightened and made young again by the energy of that amazing family...