For Wilshire Baptist Church
Ever think about last suppers, last meals, last visits? We usually don’t ahead of time because we don’t know when they will be. But afterwards?
My last meal with my sister Martha was probably at Sadler’s restaurant in Jacksonville, our usual stopping place for lunch on family drives down to Orange in southeast Texas to visit my grandparents. It was Easter week and nobody could have predicted the crash later in the day that would forever leave an empty chair at our family table.
I don’t recall my last meal with high school buddy John. It probably was at a fast food or pizza joint in Richardson while we were home from our respective colleges. I do recall Debra, my girlfriend at the time, was with us and we all crowded onto the wide bench seat of my Chevy Malibu and talked and laughed about whatever was going on. We had our whole lives ahead of us, or at least that’s what we thought, until John headed back to school one day and never arrived.
My father’s last supper was sitting up in bed, eating dinner during rehab after a fall that broke his leg. I couldn’t have imagined the next time I would see him he’d be lying unconscious in an ICU room, the beeps of monitors and the breaths of oxygen machines forever taking the place of real conversations.
As for Debra, she knew her last supper was indeed her last. She was in hospice care at home but still able to walk from the bedroom to a chair in the den where she ate some small bites of meat loaf. As I helped her walk back to the bedroom, she said, “It’s going to be okay. It’s a good place. The people there are nice.” She saw something, felt something, knew something.
There are lots of regrets wrapped up in these memories of last suppers — regrets of appreciations not spoken, compliments not made; “I love you’s” not shared in words, handshakes or hugs. It’s part of our human condition to mull over what we could’ve, would’ve, should’ve, even when we didn’t know it was the last opportunity.
Today, on this Holy Thursday, we remember Christ’s last supper with his disciples. He knew, of course, what was coming next, and he told them but they didn’t understand or didn’t want to believe. Like us, they were too human for their own good. “Surely, this can’t be; surely, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
We shouldn’t live our lives wondering if a supper with someone will be the last, or wallowing in regret if that turns out to be the case. What we can do, however, is be more attentive in the moments we have with those we love. And thanks to the events of Easter — the supper, the trial, the crucifixion and resurrection — we can live with faith and hope we will gather around tables once more with those whose faces and voices we miss.