A tradition of fine dining

Tomorrow morning I will get up, feed the dogs, start the coffee and then, for the last time ever set about making a school lunch for my daughter.  I’ve thought about this perhaps eight times today so I figure either I exorcise it by blogging or let it wake me up in the middle of the night.

I’ve thought a lot about passages of late but it never occurred to me that the last lunch-packing session would be such a rite for me.  I’ll make her half a ham and cheese sandwich on wheat with mayo and put it in a zip lock bag. I’ll lay it out with a piece of fruit, a paper towel folded four ways and perhaps fill her water bottle, if she hasn’t already done so herself. Not fancy, but it’s what she wants.

I wonder how many lunches I’ve made over the years?  I wouldn’t know how to start counting.  Let’s see… there were the three or four years in a row that Daughter One – and therefore Daughter Two, as well – demanded peanut butter and jelly.  It got to the point I couldn’t stand the smell of the stuff, and I truly like peanut butter and jelly.  But again, it was what they wanted.

I used to stop and get the girls those coconut-covered sno-ball things on the way from day care to home. It would keep them quiet long enough to get us safely home. I know, not a great thing to feed young minds but they turned out okay, so what?

Mary and Daughter Two used to have a Tuesday / Thursday night tradition of getting a quick bite between the time DT got out of choir rehearsal and the end of Daughter One’s rehearsal. It was too far to drive home in between rehearsals and one can only listen to the same songs rehearsed so many times.

For a long time, Daughter One would eat anything, so long as it came out of a Spaghetti-Ohs can. I didn’t like that stuff when I opened the first can and I liked it even less while opening can number whatever.

I’m tempted to make her a special lunch tomorrow but that would that mean today had been the REAL last day of the traditional school lunch, which absent a time machine would mean it had gone by unmarked and unnoticed. In order to be the last ever of something, it has to be that thing. Which means tomorrow’s lunch needs to be a school lunch like other school lunches. Not fancy, just half a sandwich and some sides.

And besides, it’s what she wants.