Pass the tissues! Kelsey Harmon’s heartbreaking photo of her grandfather sadly eating a hamburger is breaking the Internet.
“Dinner with papaw tonight . . . he made 12 burgers for all 6 grandkids and I’m the only one who showed,” the Oklahoma-based student tweeted Wednesday, March 16, after five of her cousins flaked on their grandpa for dinner.
Harmon later explained to BuzzFeed: “So I sit down and get a plate, but he waits because he wanted to make sure everyone else got plenty. Well about 30 minutes pass and he decides he’ll eat just one. An hour goes by and nobody shows. I could tell he was disappointed, but I made sure to stick around and hang out with with him. We had a really great time.”
She continued: “I could tell he was disappointed … he even made homemade ice cream, our favorite as kids.”
Her tweet received more than 70,000 retweets and 110,000 likes in less than 24 hours.
“Kelsey seriously why would you even tweet that bc now I’m sad,” wrote one user, to which Harmon responded: “bc people need to appreciate their family ok I was so sad.”
As the story developed, some people began to attack Harmon’s Papaw-abandoning cousins — and even made threats on their lives. One of the grandkids, Brock Harmon, eventually showed up to dinner and tweeted his own photo of Pawpaw at the table. “Papaw said he forgives me and wants all of you to know ya’ll are awesome for making him famous,” Brock wrote.
GUYS DON’T WORRY!!!! I CAME TO PAPAWS HOUSE AND AM HAVING A BURGER!!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/2EHVllGG2U
— Brock Harmon (@BHarmon_10) March 17, 2016
On March 18, Kelsey took to twitter to assure Pawpaw’s fans that he is fine.
“I have had many laughs at the memes and funny posts of my papaw,” she wrote. “I’ve also had many, many messages telling me my post encouraged people everywhere to visit their grandparents. And that means so much to me. I’ve also seen many sad posts, people saying they don’t get the chance to see their grandparents, and my heart aches for them.”
See how the Internet reacted below:
https://twitter.com/DestineeKeyes/status/707352365624664064
https://twitter.com/OwenPReed/status/710808374074589184
when u see one of the 5 grandkids that didn’t eat with pawpaw pic.twitter.com/EmHGiy1k5Q
— mean plastic (@meanpIastic) March 17, 2016
#pawpaw honestly who did this? pic.twitter.com/jJgNsg28fG
— kilie ♡ (@kilieeeee) March 18, 2016
Why couldn’t they just show up to pawpaw’s dinner pic.twitter.com/T2xZ7IqNaD
— Brandon williams (@hawaiinshirts) March 17, 2016
https://twitter.com/jdbxpenn/status/710566329363918848
— Dylan Young (@deeyung) March 18, 2016
