It’s back. After more than 30 years, the McDonald’s fried apple pie is available, just in time to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States of America. 

I will always associate this dessert with my grandfather. The apple treat is like a pie pocket, with a crispy, flaky crust enveloping the hot cinnamon-and-apple filling. It comes in a small box, making it easy to eat without getting your hands dirty. 

Nevertheless, my grandfather, Manuel Alfonso García Dubus, would eat it with a fork and a knife. Before the restaurant chain discontinued them, we would bring him two of these apple pies every time we’d visit him in the Dominican Republic. He would also make sure to have several whenever he visited us. 

We saw him a lot, even after we moved to Arizona. He had a lovely, deep voice and only spoke in Spanish. His smile worked in any language, though, and so did his laugh. He told plenty of jokes, but I only got about half of them. And he seemed to love nothing more than spending time with us. 

Manuel Alfonso García Dubus with the author. (Photo provided by J.D. Long García)

My grandparents came to see us often, but one summer they came so my grandfather could receive cancer treatment. He made it through that time. He later received cancer treatment in Florida and fought through that, too. 

But eventually, on July 4, 2003, he died of the disease. We were there by his side during those painful final weeks. He was lucid but suffering. I am glad we were there, but it was hard. Ever since, the Fourth of July has been about him, not the United States. 

I didn’t grow up in an especially patriotic household. We didn’t fly an American flag in front of our house, and we didn’t have a flag in storage either. But my grandfather always admired the United States. His father, a surveyor, studied at Columbia and Fordham in New York. My grandfather learned the trade from him, though he did his university studies in the Dominican Republic. It’s a cliché, but he saw the United States as a land of opportunity. 

In part, that’s why my grandparents sent my mother to study in Illinois, where she met my father. When my mother was a kid, she recently told me, the family made a trip to New York for the 1964 World’s Fair. My grandfather insisted they fly to Florida and take the bus north so that he could take in more of the country. “You can’t see it from an airplane,” he said. 

Coming from an island in the Caribbean, he appreciated how much the United States had to offer. My mother found opportunities in this country, both as a student and as a professional, that she could not have had back home. Life was better for her and for other family members who came here, even if they did not realize all of their dreams. Americans, my grandfather would point out, often don’t appreciate the blessings we have. 

My grandfather was 6 when Rafael Leónidas Trujillo came to power in a military revolt against President Horacio Vásquez in 1930. Before his assassination in 1961, Trujillo massacred thousands of Haitians and ruthlessly stripped civil and political liberties from Dominicans. My mother and uncle were both born during his reign. 

Still, despite living through such tyranny, my grandfather remained a proud Dominican. Some of his friends moved to the United States, but he was committed to staying. In his work as a surveyor, he saw parts of the country that few others did. And he loved it. 

My grandfather admired the United States, but he did not think Americans were any better than Dominicans. He didn’t believe Americans were lesser either. All equal, he thought, but all different. 

A few months before my grandfather’s death, the United States entered into a war with Iraq. My mother was with him that March, when the invasion began. He was horrified. It didn’t make any sense, and neither did the deaths of all the innocent people. He was not in awe of U.S. military might. He was terrified and disgusted by how we used it. 

My grandfather didn’t like the war, and he didn’t like President Bush. But he also knew that the country was more than any one president. The people outlive their leaders.  

I wish my grandfather were still here with us. I wish I could introduce my wife and children to him. And, since it is back at long last, I wish I could bring him a couple of boxes of McDonald’s apple pie. My grandfather is the reason I’m proud to be a Dominican. But he’s also the reason I’m proud to be an American. 

J.D. Long García is a senior editor at America and co-author of Clericalism: The Institutional Dimension of the Catholic Sexual Abuse Crisis.