Noshing: The Last Orange

Today, the inevitable happened.

This is the last orange from my grandparents’ tree that I will ever eat.

My chest tightened typing that.

No more picking oranges or tangerines from the backyard trees that fed my family for decades.

There are a lot of “firsts” that are difficult to experience after someone’s death.

The first holiday without them around. The first birthday they won’t celebrate. The first time you pick up the phone wanting to call them because—for a split second—you forgot they aren’t there.

There are also a lot of “lasts”.

The last time you heard their voice. The last time you shared a meal. The last hug. The last time you rolled your eyes at a corny joke they told you. The last night you spent in their home. The last time you picked an orange from their tree.

My last orange harvest came after an afternoon of loading a rented van with furniture, art, kitchenware, and random tchotchkes from my grandparents’ home in LA. Later that night, I slept in their home for the last time before driving the van to my new apartment in San Francisco.

I find it easier to be present in life’s hard moments. The feelings that tend to come with them are more tangible and easier to identify the harder the moments become.

During that visit, I was viscerally, painfully aware of every last.

It’s been a few weeks since I got back to San Francisco. The oranges that came up with me filled the bottom drawer of my fridge. The drawer went from overflowing to nearly empty way too quickly for my liking. Every time I grabbed an orange was deeply bittersweet.

I’ve been dreading the inevitability of the last orange.

I’ve also been savoring each one that came before it.

I’ve been trying to memorize how the first bites of each felt on my tongue and the scent that lingered on my hands long after the last bites.

The ones I picked on my second-to-last visit in April were shockingly, perfectly tart, firm, and had a lot of seeds. The oranges from my last visit in May—that I’ve been snacking on well into June—were bright, sweet, plump, juicy, wrapped in a wrinkly rind, and had very few seeds.

Every time I finished one I was torn. Do I satisfy my immediate desire and peel another immediately, hastening the day when this choice is taken from me?

Today, the inevitable happened.

I was alone in my kitchen peeling the last orange and had one of those easy-to-feel, hard moments. The type of moment heavy with such a strange significance that, even if I hadn’t been home alone, no one else around me could or would notice. As I stood in my kitchen, briefly frozen in grief, I was hyperaware that as my world crashed around me the world continued as usual for everyone else.

Then I ate the last orange and my world caught up to yours.

As much as I want to live in the lasts, the firsts keep coming. And so does everything in between.