My grandpa was leaning on our shopping cart, because standing on his own was getting too tiresome for him, while we were shopping for groceries with my mother and my sister. He told us that it was his neighbor's 84^th birthday tomorrow and that he wanted to get him something.

"Yesterday he told me that going to the bathroom was a little difficult for him lately, so I wanted to get him something for that, like kombucha", said my grandpa.

"Oh yeah, that has probiotics in it, right?" I answered.

We finished our shopping and brought my grandpa home. As we approached his house, I could see that there was a woman and a man standing in front of his neighbour's house. They were standing with some space between them. They stared at the floor. A younger man sat on the steps to the house and blew his nose. As we walked closer to them I could see that they were all holding tissues in their hands, and that their faces were a little red.

We walked up to them and the woman said to my grandpa: "Dad just died."

"When did that happen?", answered my grandpa.

"Just now... I was baking a cake and I yelled upstairs that if he didn't come now I will just clean the bowl, you know, because he wanted to eat the rest of the dough, the cake was for his birthday tomorrow, but he didn't come down, so I yelled again but nothing happened, then I went upstairs, in his room, I yelled again, so I went into the bathroom and there he was, slumped, leaning over his legs, on the toilet...“

"I just saw him yesterday... I just bought him a gift for tomorrow." My grandpa held up the bag in his hand slightly, which had the kombucha in it.

"We're really shocked... The doctor was just here."

"Can I see him?"
"Who?"

"Him."

"He's in the living room..."

We said goodbye to our grandpa, before he entered his dead neighbour's house, who had lived next to him for over 40 years. My mother talked to the woman for a while, she said he would have wanted it this way, I assumed she meant dying quickly and without pain, and we said goodbye, walked away to the car and gave each other an embarrassed smile for a second because of the gift that came too late and drove home.