Thanksgiving reflections
Well, that didn't last long, I thought as the door closed on the last of my Thanksgiving Day guests, if you can call your own kids guests. Obviously this wasn't anything like the original Thanksgiving that lasted for days when the Indians traveled far distances, bringing their portable homes and families to the impromptu gala organized by the pilgrims to thank God for their new friends who had provided gratefully received farming and survival instruction in the new world. It wasn’t even anything like the more current Thanksgivings I’d grown up with in the earlier part of the twentieth century.
After clearing the tragic scene of dining chaos in the kitchen, (a scene from Julia Childs meets King Kong) I sat down on the couch next to my mom, highly disheartened in the outcome of my Thanksgiving experience. Days of cooking and cleaning, pulling out the holiday decorations, family recipes, videos, games and activities, all ended in a ten minute feeding frenzy so my kids could make it to an afternoon movie, a movie they had sprung an invitation to on me when they arrived. Sure I could have gone, but at my age my body needed more time for digestion plus I needed advance warning for acts of spontaneity; weeks of advance warning was recommended for geriatric spontaneity. Who goes to movies on Thanksgiving Day? It’s just not natural. I wouldn't see them again today. After the flick they'd go back to their own homes, minutes away, not over hill and dale. And even though they resided close by it would be some time before they would revisit. Christmas day actually, so they could unwrap presents that I had carefully purchased and return the day after for something they wanted, not something I thought they would enjoy, or something I had enjoyed buying for them.
I was definitely having a moment of self-pity. Loneliness was setting in along with feelings of abandonment. Holiday let down. Let down from loss of company and companionship. I crossed the room to pick up my fifteen year old Shih Tzu, Lefty, squeezed him close to my heart, then set him on the couch next to me and reached over my mom's head for the old fashioned photo album on the end table behind her, you know, the kind that doesn’t automatically change pictures or require batteries and computer proficiency. Mom smiled back at me with the familiar dimples and lipstick stained lips. At least she was still here to stroll down memory lane.
"I wish we were back at your house doing this, mom." I said flipping through the photos of holidays past.
I found the photos where I had spent the night at my parent’s house in my old room with my kids camped out on the floor in their theme sleeping bags of spider man and wonder woman, sleeping bags made for slumber parties but not practical for outdoor camping. The holidays used to be fun back then before life’s realities hit. I had always looked forward to going to mom and dad’s, spending the night, being waited on hand and foot while they complained that I could help out just a little, hey, I did only help out just a little. There was a picture of me as I washed dishes; I was caught off guard by dad who wanted to record that moment to prove to his friends I wasn’t ready for disability yet. I had hoped I was continuing a family tradition, looking ahead to the years when my kids would come here for the night and spend the whole next day, no matter how close they lived. At least the tradition of waiting on them hand and foot had endured.
Then there were the pictures of mom, dad, my brothers, me and my kids playing games and watching football till our stomachs shrunk enough for desserts: pies, cakes, turkey sandwiches (okay that’s not really a dessert.) Pictures of the family laying around the house with bottles of antacid on nearby tables. What memories.
Finally I came to the pictures that always saddened me. “Hey mom, here is the last time we spent Thanksgiving together at your house.” I said tipping the album in her direction for her to view. There Mom was on Kodak paper, looking tired but affecting a smile for the camera. I glanced up at her, the smile she had now was more believable because she was more rested since it had become my turn to do all the drudgery. The torch had been passed down to me twenty some years ago when breast cancer struck. Surgery, chemo and radiation had wiped out Mom’s energy reserves. In this picture she was in a wheel chair next to dad who was holding the cooked turkey up like a hunting trophy (in a roasting pan with bubbling juices, yum, yum, yummy). I wonder where all the Polaroid’s went of the pilgrims standing next to arrow pierced deer skewered over open fires.
I remember that last Thanksgiving at home, all the out of town family had come and stayed for a few days and used my bedroom so I had actually had to come over the day of Thanksgiving instead of having my warm fuzzy sleep over and hot cooked breakfast of pancakes and eggs, well, I still had the pancake and eggs but they weren't served to me in bed and I had to make them myself. How horrible.
"Mom, I'm sure glad they all came that year," I said to the smiling face next to me on my left, while I patted Lefty to the right of me. He was named Lefty because he'd been the puppy left over from his mom’s only litter. I had just put his dad to sleep eight months ago after sixteen years of allegiance, Lefty's mom had died unnaturally- natural at thirteen four years earlier. God, how I missed them.
So here I sat, on Thanksgiving Day, all alone with my mom and dog comparing past experiences, auditing this thanksgiving with my past and stamping a big failure sign on it, while my kids were out having fun without me, (yeah, I know I was invited but that’s beside the point.) Doing all this reminiscing was letting me down big time. Mom just smiled at me while Lefty slept at my side, recently released from the seizures he'd been having of late. There was something in Mom's smile. Something that said, "Go, spend time with your kids while you still have time." Mom wouldn't say that out loud, not when she was so good at conveying messages with her eyes; eyes that could produce more guilt than any vocabulary in Webster’s dictionary.
I snapped the album shut and decided it was time to start a new tradition, either movie going with my kids or aging alone. Heck I couldbe spontaneous if I wanted. I spontaneously jumped up and prepared to go to the movies, glancing at my watch I determined if I drove at my normal speed I'd make it on time. (My normal speed being slightly higher than the limit by about 15 miles per hour). What officer would give me a ticket on Thanksgiving? One that had to work on Thanksgiving. I'd chance it.
Meeting mom's eyes I laid a kiss on her cold cheek leaving another set of lip prints on the glass in the picture frame. Then I picked up the little wooden box Lefty was encased in and laid it on top of the other polished oak boxes that contained his dad and mom, Cuzn Buz and Nikkie. A whole family of love contained in crematory containers; piling up rapidly to remind me that dust we are, to dust we’ll return. And with no certainty of when.
"As much as I miss you guys I think I'd rather spend the rest of the day with the living" I sighed as I switched off the lights and closed the front door behind me.
Mom stared at Lefty. Lefty stared at Mom. Nikki and Cuzn Buz stared at them both. "What does she mean by that?" Mom quizzed as she ruffled Lefty's neck fur then patted her restored chest wall. "Doesn't she know we're more alive and well now than ever?" Lefty, recently freed ten days ago from his tortured body, wagged his whole physique in agreement then butted heads playfully with his parents.
As I drove off to the theater to be with my kids for the rest of Thanksgiving, my mom rounded up my three beloved pets, dogs that had been revamped to perfect health along with her and shooed them on ahead; back to that special place in the sky called Heaven until the next time they were summoned by photographs or memories. Or better yet, till I was joyfully reunited with them.
