Chapter 1: The Food

My grandfather used to make the best, housewarming, homemade food. It would fill the air in the house with a vibrant, warm scent. His affection that flew from his heart out into a big pot of food brought everyone together. Fima, our grandfather, would always make us home cooked traditional foods to eat at family dinners. He would make us what we liked to call, Fima’s famous french fries, rice plov, and shashlik. Fima’s famous french fries were rich, shiny skinless potatoes cut up very thin and fried in vegetable oil. They would cook and become crisp, making popping noises as the oil splashed and landed on the stove. When they were finished, Fima would transfer the crisp potato slices into a glass bowl, where we would soon be enjoying the perfect potatoes that our amazing grandfather had made for us. Another food Fima made was called plov, which was a rich combination of rice, carrots, spices, and diced chicken, beef or lamb. He would cook the moist, white rice to perfection, and slowly add in the diced, bright orange, unskinned carrots to a separate metal pot. Fima used to cut up the raw chicken/beef/lamb, unseasoned, he added that to the pot along with the carrots to cook in the separate pot. His food was always everything we would imagine in our minds as we sniffed the heavy scent of cumin and sat all together at the extended dinner table. Me and my cousins would help set up the dinner table before eating. All of us would join to sit down at the table and munch on the delicious food that Baba and Fima had prepared for us. Almost always, if we had come over for a special dinner, a speech would be given, and the speech would revolve around being thankful for everyone at the dinner table, especially Fima. We toasted to everyone's health and happiness, and we were all extremely thankful for Fima, because he was the rock in our family, and we always wished he would live forever and ever. 

Almost every time I walked into my grandparents’ house, I would open the door and would get a whiff of the smell of oil alongside the smell of grilling. This time was no different. I took off my shoes in the front corridor, and as I walked to greet my grandparents,  I saw Fima cooking. I walked up to him, and I saw that he was cooking his shashlik on the grill outside. My grandmother, Baba, was inside cooking the Fima’s Famous French Fries, as Fima had become weak with a bad shoulder, mainly from his intense chemotherapy treatments. She had started taking over making some of his foods, mostly the Fima’s Famous French fries. Fima was diagnosed with brain and lung cancer about 4 years ago. He still had the motivation and determination to get up and cook almost a whole meal for the family. Even though he knew he shouldn't overwork himself by cooking too much, he found the will to do what he enjoyed, and that was to feed his family. Shishlik is a food that he made almost every time we had a family meal, because it was not exhausting for him and it didn’t wear him out as much. He would marinate it in a bunch of spices, and then grill the raw meat on a metal skewer, to a juicy, crisp perfection. I think he felt defeated at times because he knew his body couldn't handle all of the cooking, so it made him upset knowing that my grandmother had to start taking over. My mother,  father, aunt and uncle also started helping my grandfather with the family dinners and began to learn how to create Fima's amazing recipes. He began to accept that we were trying to help when he felt worse.

I greet Baba with a hug and kiss, then Fima. 

“Hi Fima.”

“Hi.”

“How are you doing?”

“Good.”

Our conversations were always short. We rarely had long and deep conversations. His love and emotions were mainly shown through the food that he would cook for us as a family, and rarely through words. 

Chapter 2: The Cancer

My grandfather would wear his adidas sweatsuits while moping around his house alone most days after his retirement. Mostly, on weekdays and weeknights when he wasn’t busy cooking for the family, he kept up with housework and handiwork while my Baba was at work.  When the family was over Baba and Fimas house, he would try as much as he could to cook for us. Fima enjoyed working at his job, which was at BJ’s as a butcher. When he got diagnosed with cancer, he was shattered from having to retire from working at BJ’s. After he left and went on retirement, he fell into a funk and would be more miserable and depressed. He had always been a serious guy, but he was more gloomy than usual. He thought he would spend his retirement traveling and enjoying everything he built for himself and Baba during all of their hardworking years.  Between his chemo and having to go into retirement early, because of his diagnosis, it made his mood worse, and it also made his muscles weaken. There was cancer in Fima’s shoulder and he had a hard time with the way he did certain things, like cooking, or cutting things in the kitchen, especially meat. My butcher grandfather couldn't cut meat well anymore.  He had loved to carve the Thanksgiving turkey for the family and he couldn't do it anymore. He started cooking less, and slowly let Baba take over his cooking role in the kitchen. I think that because we all helped out with the food in the kitchen, it showed Fima how much we all cared for him, like he cared for us.

The cancer in his body spread cell by cell as the chemotherapy treatments stopped working. Those cancer cells began in his lungs and spread into his brian, bones and liver, towards the end. The obnoxious, wicked cancer soon spread throughout his body and caused my grandfather's battle to the end.  The doctors couldn't control the wicked spreading cells, and they said the unexpected words: 

“We are sorry there is nothing left that we can do except make him comfortable….hospice.” 

The doctors gave us the time frame, which we thought would turn out to be weeks. We would visit him everyday after his newest hospice news, along with his new diagnoses. I walked into his room and looked at him lying in his bed with oxygen wrapped around his face.

“Hi Fima.”

“Hi”, Fima said weakly to me.

“How are you doing?”

He slowly, and shakily shrugged.

“I love you” I said to him.

“I love you too,” he whispered under his breath. 

After a week of Fima being in hospice, he died on September 1st with his loved ones holding onto him tight, which reflected the affection and care he used to show through his cooking and foods. Baba now will try and take over Fima’s amazing food recipes and we all will soon be walking into Baba’s house with a whiff of the nostalgic smell of Fima’s cooking. Our family will now sense everytime we smell his particular food recipes being cooked in the kitchen by our Baba, we will think of the extra time that we wish we still had with our Deda Fima at the dinner table. Everyone will sense him sitting at the head of the table with all of us alongside of him and remember his love that he put into his food and his family values. Nothing will ever be the same anymore, since he is no longer with us. No longer cooking for us. Baba is at the current state where she doesn’t have the courage to cook his foods that he was known for. She is too sad and we all are surrounding her and giving her all of our love and support at this now and forever. We will now wait to walk into Baba’s house until she gets the strength to cook his recipes, and we can once again  get a waft of the fried potatoes cooking, and the shishlik cooking on the grill. We will now wait to smell his foods again and remember him with love, as we get to smell his foods cooking again. And, we will always remember the reason that Fima cooked for us and how his amazing traditional meals brought his family together to one table in unity!