December 9, 1935 – December 19, 2025

My Mom never used foul language lightly. She cursed sparingly with exactitude. Like a surgeon wielding a scalpel, she swore with precision of expertise and accuracy of intent. So I knew I was in trouble the moment I placed rich and creamy, hand-crafted tapioca pudding in front of her and she said, “…tastes like shit.” I was woefully unprepared. I was unskilled and inexperienced in her kitchen and with her dying.

Designer yogurt proved to be a painful affront to her palate. Abandoned popsicles melted into paltry puddles of processed sugar. The chemical slurry of chocolate flavored Ensure never even reached her end of the flexible plastic straw. “You’re trying to kill me,” she mumbled. Ashamed, I hung my head.

I knew that I needed to restore her appetite, her strength, her innate ability to fight the cancer that short-circuited her tastebuds and rendered black and white, her extraordinarily colorful life. But I was entirely out of my element.

In desperation, I pivoted from sweet to savory. Fresh bone broth. Simmered for three days, sifted repeatedly and lightly spiced, this was opaque liquid perfection. I placed a mug of the elixir into her hands and smiled, confident that I could rekindle her taste. That one crucial yet elusive sense that so far, avoided all of my culinary advances. I was convinced that taste and then life would be restored with homemade broth. Redemption a mere sip away. It was all so very clear in my eyes. But she saw through the wisps of steaming broth and looked at me like I just squashed a spider and then smeared the remains onto her toothbrush.

“Ma, you gotta eat. You need your strength. How about a scrambled egg?” She shot me another look, this one aristocratic, more akin to highbrow anguish rather than bourgeois disgust. Idiot! She was raised on a farm, she wanted meat. Protein. I dashed off to Safeway and returned with two miniature glass jars full of flesh colored baby food, tiny concoctions of turkey and chicken that required special rubber-coated utensils. A narrow, tarnished grapefruit spoon, hidden in the recesses of her silverware drawer, would suffice. A tentative dab, barely a thimble-sized portion of pediatric avian pate. Perhaps a dozen calories in total froze for a moment before her lips. Me, holding my breath, again a pained look and then, “Shit. It’s no wonder babies throw up all the time.”

Failure. Panic. Another frantic late night run to Safeway. But I returned triumphant with the Holy Grail of gastronomy, Cream of Wheat. And then I spiked it with bacon grease and pure Canadian maple syrup. Another uncertain scoop, this time with a well worn teaspoon emblazoned with a “W” from her wedding set. Wright was her married name. She used her maiden name, Landreville, later in life, but everyone in town knew her as Gramma June. “Not bad,” she said and put the spoon aside, “but I want a burrito.”

Gramma June spent 63 of her 90 zesty years on Speckled Avenue in Kings Beach. In the house my Dad built for her after they were married in 1962. And this will always be her home. But North Lake Tahoe will be a strange place without Gramma June.

Gramma June’s final luncheon for two was presented bedside around noon on December 19th, 2025. I waved a white flag in her kitchen and then lovingly dispensed a 1.5ml serving of crimson morphine beneath her tongue. She was beautiful and silent. And I yearned for a response.

I do hope that God is a good cook. Because Gramma June is going to be hungry when she sashays her way into Heaven. If God truly is infinitely wise, he’ll have a margarita and some chips and salsa waiting for her at the Pearly Gates. Viva Gramma June!