Food and Memories Final Draft

Emily Martin
eamartin@usieagles.org
English 201.501
Final Draft
1224 words

Tragedy and Recovery Through Meat

Often when we look back in our memories we can remember a time and place best by what we ate that day. Some of these events are best forgotten because the experience was so horrible. However, for the lucky few there are great food experiences that will be remembered and talked about for years to come. Some foods may even mark a terrible life event and a wonderful one at the same time. For me, that awe inspiring food is beef.

There once was a time in my life where hamburgers and steak ruled the family dinners. Beef was seen on our table at least three nights a week. My dad loved cooking for all of us, my four brothers and sisters. Plus, I think hamburgers were just easier for him to make with so many mouths to feed. However, a tragic passing in the family changed our dinner menu for the next decade.

Nearly 10 years ago, my grandfather, Francis Will, was diagnosed with Cruetzfeld Jacobs Disease, the human form of "Mad Cow Disease." The disease is a slow killer much like that of AIDS. It lay dormant in my grandfather's body for 40 years. My grandfather, an unsuspecting victim, didn't even know that something was wrong with him until it was too late to do anything about it. The disease is marked by uncontrollable seizures, forgetfulness similar to Alzheimer’s disease in its latter stages and loss of bodily function and control. The debilitating disease was found to be caused by eating beef brain sandwiches in Europe during the war. However, after watching my grandfather suffer for months and forget who I was, I swore of beef as a whole, not just beef brain sandwiches. At the age of 13, I made a pact with myself and refused to eat steak, hamburger and all other beef products. To me, it was the beef that took my grandfather away from me not just the disease. I was furious with the cattle farmers, meat processing plants and even cows for not doing their part to protect him. However, not everyone in my family agreed with my decision to ward off beef.

My mom feared that I wouldn't be getting the appropriate vitamins and minerals that I needed to stay healthy. I informed her that vegetarians live just fine without meat. My brother and sisters didn't quite understand why I had taking such a drastic action against beef. However, I witnessed my grandfather's final year of life diminish at an alarming rate first hand unlike them. Being the first granddaughter and all, I was very close to my grandfather and the only grandchild mature enough to help take care of him. My dad disagreed with my decision at first because he had to cook me a separate meal for dinner every time he cooked beef products. I think he thought it was a teenage phase I was going through and it would eventually pass. After about a year of not eating anything beef, he finally gave up trying to make me eat it, and just made me chicken instead. It was nice when he finally saw where I was coming from and took me serious.

Sometimes in life there are people that change your world, and it happened to me some years after my grandfather passed away. It has been eight years since my grandfather’s passing and I recently ate my first piece of beef since his untimely death. While Brian, my boyfriend, and I were out at dinner one night he asked me to try a piece of his steak. It was one of the hardest decisions of my life. Brian knew my grandfather quite well, and what I had been threw with his passing. He knew I had been so against eating beef or having anything to do with it, and was now asking me to trust him and just try it. Well, reluctantly, I tried the steak piece and showed that I trusted him. It was so delicious; I loved it. I really loved it, but on the inside I felt so guilty, as if I had defied my grandfather. Eating the piece of steak that night had a great impact on my life. Not only did I try beef for the first time in several years, but Brian also gave me my “I will always care for you” ring that night. Eating steak marked a milestone in my life. I had began a process of getting over a fear of beef that I had had for so many years, and received a symbol of love and compassion from Brian.

Brian and I's love for each other grew immensely over the next couple of months. We were inseparable just as we had been when we were kids many years earlier. I decided to leave St. Louis and move to Evansville, and pursue my education in Indiana closer to Brian. The first couple of months here were hard for me being away from my family in St. Louis and trying to get used to the slow pace in Evansville. The hardest part of moving to Evansville was moving in across the street from my grandfather's home into Brian’s house. It brought back all the great memories that my grandfather and I had shared when I came to visit every summer. It was also because of my grandfather that I met Brian.

Brian was a scrawny, neighborhood boy that liked to play in the dirt with his tractors and build tree houses right across the lane from my grandfather’s house. I would spend my summer days running back and forth in my grandfather’s yard waiting for Brian to walk over and ask me to play with him. Brian would come over, and talk to my grandfather and help him with yard chores, but always avoided me. I think because I was a girl and he was shy. I was only three when my grandfather finally introduced me to the then skinny, short, blonde haired, four year old boy, but it was worth the wait. Brian and I have been attached at the hip since then. We shared our first kisses with each other when we were nine and ten years old, spent years mad at each other over silly “becoming teenagers” drama, and ended up rekindling the old flame and becoming as crazy about each other as we had been in our childhood years.

Coincidently, a year after trying my first piece of beef with Brian, I had big news for Brian to be shared over another steak dinner. I was about to tell him that we were expecting our first child, when I realized this was only the second time I had eaten beef since my grandfather had passed away eight years earlier. Beef seems to have an effect on my life. It marked a horrible event and two of the greatest events of my life. I loved my grandfather more than anything in the world, and quit eating beef for him. Then Brian became my greatest love, and I started eating beef again with him. It’s a good thing I trusted him, because I order steak at a bunch of restaurants now to celebrate the wonderful gifts in life.