Sally Jean's Last Meal

- an excerpt from "GRITS Friends are Forevah" as told by Sharon Bohannon

The doorbell rang just as I was cutting up the last of the okra. Surely it must be Sally Jean, she was supposed to have been here an hour ago. How did I forget to leave the door unlocked, anyway? My hands were sticky from the okra, so I used a hand towel to open it. We greeted each other, and she surprised me with a gallon of her famous sweet tea. Sally and I had been friends since we were twelve years old, and today we were cooking all of her favorites for her last meal.

Every burner was fired up on the stove, and we took turns tending to cornmeal-battered summer squash, fried okra, green beans, corn scraped off the cob with real butter and cream, and new red potatoes. The timer buzzed on the oven, and we pulled out buttermilk cornbread baked to perfection. Sally Jean turned off the Crock-Pot and opened it to the smell of pot roast so tender it was falling to pieces. We sliced home-grown tomatoes, garden-fresh cucumbers, and sweet Vidalia onions.

I dug out my best tablecloth and spread it across the dining room table, and we set out my best stoneware in true Southern style. Sally Jean poured out the sweet tea and squeezed in juicy lemon wedges. I pulled a work of art in a Pyrex dish from my fridge: layers of vanilla wafers and bananas drenched in the sweetest pudding I've ever made topped with browned meringue.

Sally Jean was touched. Banana pudding had been her favorite dessert for twenty years. She sighed, both of us knew this was her last meal.

Sally Jean said grace in a voice barely above a whisper, then the eating and fun began. We ate and talked and promised to be best friends forever.

We toasted this last meal together with the clinking of our sweet tea glassses. It was the end for Sally Jean, tomorrow, she'd begin her diet.