Why I agreed to officiate my grandmother's funeral after all

I knew it was coming.

I was visiting my grandmother a few years ago. Grammy was making banana splits, a ritual I’d witnessed many times—the way she sliced the banana, not lengthwise like at the ice-cream parlor, but like thick quarters; how they fell into the bowl, piling up in the middle; how she dropped one large scoop of ice cream on top, then poured the Hershey’s syrup and sprinkled the peanuts. No fancy extras—cherries, whipped cream, pineapple. How many of these had I eaten?

I lived with my grandparents one summer in college. Some people gain the freshman 15; I gained the grandparent 20.