My brother’s final grocery order included food for a party he never had

Dear Delyara, My brother died suddenly at home. When we accessed his grocery account to cancel future deliveries, we found an order scheduled for Friday: crisps, beer, dips, six pizzas, birthday candles, chocolate cake. His birthday would have been Saturday. He had invited friends over and told none of us because apparently he wanted a small party without family making a fuss about turning fifty. The delivery company asked whether I wanted to cancel. I did. Then I called back and asked them to deliver it to my house instead. That probably sounds strange. On Saturday, we invited the friends he had planned to see. We ate the pizzas he chose, drank the beer, lit the candles on the cake he ordered for himself. Someone asked who should blow them out. Nobody did. They burned until wax reached the icing. I kept thinking how confident that grocery basket had been about the future. Six pizzas is not grief. It is expectation. It says people are coming. There will be hunger. There will be Saturday. My brother placed an order for a life that was still completely ordinary when he clicked confirm.