People's hearts collectively broke on Wednesday after Oklahoma student Kelsey Harmon tweeted a picture of her glum granddad and explained the reason for his melancholy.
dinner with papaw tonight...❤️ he made 12 burgers for all 6 grandkids and I'm the only one who showed. 😢 love him
“Dinner with papaw tonight…he made 12 burgers for all 6 grandkids and I’m the only one who showed. 😢 love him,” she wrote.
Within 24 hours her tweet had received more that 70,000 retweets, most of which expressed sentiments similar to this one.
I just started crying...I'll eat your burgers pawpaw.. I love you so much https://t.co/TL6ccXQUvk
Or this one.
brb I'm going to papaw's
But fear not! The five absent grandkids heard the internet's rallying cry and decided to make it up to their papaw with a giant cookout. "Papaw's having a cookout and everyone's invited," grandson Brock Harmon wrote in a Tweet.
JUST GOT DONE TALKING TO PAPAW AND HE WANTS TO INVITE EVERYONE OUT FOR A BURGER NEXT SATURDAY👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼
The cookout is taking place at a flea market the Harmon family owns in Purcell, Oklahoma, on March 26, Harmon told BuzzFeed News. Burgers will be $2 each and they'll be selling T-shirts boasting "I had a burger with Papaw" for around $25.
"It was Papaw's idea to have the cookout," Harmon said, adding that Papaw is over the moon about his newfound internet fame and wanted nothing more than to celebrate with some burgers.
"He loves all of this," Harmon added. "He never ever thought he would be a celebrity."
Though some news outlets reported the proceeds would go toward the grandkids' college educations and charities, Harmon told BuzzFeed News that all the proceeds were going to Papaw and "what he decides to do with them is his business."
"We don't want anyone to think we're doing this for fame," Harmon told local news station KVUE-TV.
"We're a very family-oriented family. We communicate all the time … We want people to learn a lesson from this — call your grandparents, tell them you love them, go eat with them."
Harmon told BuzzFeed News that they have no idea how many people are going to show up, but that people from all over the country have been contacting him to tell them they are coming.
@amynkk
He also wanted everyone to know that he showed up for Papaw's burgers another day. Hopefully all this will make up for Papaw's one sad burger night.
GUYS DON'T WORRY!!!! I CAME TO PAPAWS HOUSE AND AM HAVING A BURGER!!!!!!!
Hope your BBQ is everything you wished it will be, Papaw, and that those other grandkids show up this time.
CORRECTION
A previous version of this post misspelled both Kelsey Harmon and Papaw’s names.