Individual Service, Not Individual Servings

Kev was rummaging in the pantry for "a little something" (remember when we were young and 'a little something' had NOTHING to do with anything in the pantry? But I digress...) to eat and asked if I had thrown away the chemotherapy snacks.

He said the pantry didn't have the "make-me-want-to-vomit" smell he associates with certain chemotherapy snacks. I know what he means. He's talking about the savory seasoned crackers of various brands that come prepackaged in little individual servings.

Or almost anything that comes prepackaged in those little foil bags. Bite sized Oreos, Cheese Nips, Chex Party Mix.

It's a chemotherapy thing reminiscent of the treatment days in Lafayette.

It's the way he was often offered a snack without anyone ever actually looking at him. Just one hand slapping a bag of crackers into another, seemingly anonymous, hand. Only it wasn't anonymous to Kevin. It was his hand. Attacked to his body. Which was there being treated with scary crap designed to kill scary crap.

The little foil bags and savory cracker smells are what has stuck with him to become a trigger for a nauseous reminder of everything he came to hate during those weeks.

It's just another one of those places where he needed to be seen, heard, felt and, instead, felt overlooked, unseen, unheard in a crowd.

The fine line between individual service and individual servings.