Grease drips around your chin. Your hands shake as you hold the steaming bowl of soup between your palms. The soup slides between your lips, mixing with the bolus sitting on your remaining molars, waiting to be washed down. Burps and slurps. Your chopsticks reach over my plate targeting the chopped up pork belly - your favorite dish. You pick out the biggest, thickest, chunkiest piece of meat you can find. Between your chopsticks, you yoyo the pork belly in and out of the soy sauce dip. Then drop off your masterpiece on my plate. What do I do with this? I've never asked for pork belly nor the soy sauce, nor your chopsticks invading my territory. I grunt and move the pork belly aside. You look at me with your side glance, baggy and wrinkly, disapproving of my ungrateful attitude. I take one more look at you and then bite into the meat, frowning. My taste buds go to war with the grease. I swallowed the unwelcome dish. The corner of your mouth elevates. A smile of victory. Then, your chopsticks hover over, again. In and out of the soy sauce, this time with another big chunk of pork belly. The biggest one you can find. Ends up on my plate, again. I roll my eyes back for you to see. Silently protesting you plating my dinner. Silently protesting you plating my dinner every night we eat together.
I come over for dinner like usual the next day. I sit down. One seat away from you. I know that you're too old to articulate your thoughts. I know you're too weak to reach your arms out that far. I know you look forward to dinner time like a puppy wagging its tail for a walk in the park. You await us with an entire table of food. You make sure every single child and grandchild of yours never leaves your house hungry. Your home is a castle and your dinner table is its epicenter. You're the king. You pick out the chunkiest meat and airborne it onto peoples' plates. You save it for your favorite guest. I know all of this. And yet I choose to sit one seat away from you. And the next day, I do the same. And the next day. And the next day. And the next day. And the next day.
It wasn't until the day you took your last breath that I realized I haven't sat by you since.
And I am so sorry about this.