Thanksgiving 2021

 Thanksgiving came and went.   There was turkey, stuffing- both "regular"  and gluten free.   Cooked carrots, mashed potatoes, gravy and gluten free rolls.    Pumpkin pie and whipped cream after.

My sister Carol, and her son, Tom (I call him Tommy) were here.  My son Chance and my husband Nick.  It was a small gathering, but it was nice.  Chance and Tommy are first cousins, but have not really spent much time as adults (as Chance later said to me).

Carol's dog Leah and our Buddy was here too.  Poor Buddy is recovering from soft tissue damage to his back legs, so he is essentially crippled at the moment.

It's funny how, after a meal, it is so comfortable to stay at the dining room table and talk.    I think it's because we are all facing each other and so conversation is easy.   

Carol and I talked a lot about Thanksgivings past and how crazy families are.   Memories!

It was really a nice day!

Thanksgiving 2021

 I have not checked, but I suspect that I write something about the melancholy I feel as the holiday season approaches every year.  Of course the pandemic has exacerbated everything.

An online, Zoom  memorial service this afternoon doesn't help.

There will be a small number around our table for Thanksgiving this year.  We have had so many different Thanksgiving experiences over the years.  It was always a time shared with family unless we were overseas.  And then we grew our own family.

Our first Thanksgiving dinner overseas was 1996 in Bangkok.   I was pregnant (with the baby we lost).  I figured that there would be too much waste with a turkey, so we cooked a duck.  I had no idea that duck has so little meat!   Learned a lesson there.

In 1984 or 85, I cannot remember, we had a Thanksgiving gathering in our house in Tromso, Norway.  I cooked two turkeys:  one was ordered form the butcher shop in town, the other one we bought in Finland.  The Norwegian turkey did not have enough fat I guess.  It's leg bones broke in the oven.  The Finnish turkey was much meatier and juicy.  An American friend who worked in a hotel was able to get sweet potatoes .  There were some American high school kids- exchange students, living there and we had them for dinner.  I remember explaining in Norwegian,  that Courtney would be missing school that day.  How did I explain Thanksgiving in Norwegian?   The closest I could get was to say that it was the day we thank god for all we have to be thankful for.

In Taiwan, a group of us went to a friend's house for a pot luck dinner.  The host was to serve turkey.  Unfortunately it was discovered too late that the host's propane for the oven had run out before the turkey was fully cooked!

In China we had a community dinner.  I remember cooking two turkeys that year as well.   

Our family grew and grew over the years.  Family dinners were the norm.  Then the kids grew up and had lives of their own.  The older generation grew old and eventually they all died.

And now we are the older generation.   

And I find myself spending hours and dollars online ordering Christmas gifts.  All of the "kids" will be here for Christmas.  Their partners/ spouses and a few cats and kids too.

So I anticipate.  I grieve.  And I look forward to the joy.

1992

Life?

 Life.  Life.  It goes on and on.  I spend much of my time, and therefore my life, thinking about my kids.   How much I like them.  How much I miss them.  How much I wish I had been nicer and more patient with them.  All of them.

They are all adults and have been for a while.  My "baby" is 30!   When I was 30, I had my third child.  I had been married for 12 years.  I did not consider myself a child at all.

But then, when my mother forgot to call me on my birthday, or didn't write for a few weeks, I was a sad, tearful child again.  Feeling hurt.  "feeling sorry for myself".  That's what I was told I was doing when I was a kid and got upset.   I am sure I said hurtful words to my children too.  It's hard, and impossible to be the perfect parent that you think you should be.

The kids are all planning to be here for Christmas.  I am happy.  I am excited.  And I am nervous.  Will someone get mad at someone else.  Will we all be able to keep patient with each other.  Will they find Nick and I annoying?

I want to hold my babies faces in my hands, one at a time, and look into their eyes.  The eyes that used to gaze into mine as if I was their world, their universe.   All of them held my attention in their eye contact and love.

Nick and I were talking today about how seldom we "fight" these days.  We don't annoy each other as much or in as many ways as we used to.   Maybe we've figured out that fussing doesn't fix anything.   We "yell" sort of, but we always end up laughing.

I wonder if, as you get older and less hormonal, you become more mellow and reasonable?     I told Nick that I wish I had been able to be this mellow when the kids were kids.  But it is almost impossible.   You can have one kid yelling "wipe me" while another one is asking for something and yet another  is beating up a sibling.  There is nowhere for mellow and peace to find itself.

I recall the 10:00 TV shows.  Whatever was the popular show of the day, I would stay up to watching it "China Beach", Thirty Something"  "Northern Exposure".  "Hillstreet Blues " and "Cagney and Lacey".    I am sure there are more.  That was MY time.  The house was quiet. Maybe the youngest one would sit with me nursing himself to sleep.  But it was the only time I relaxed.

Lately I have been finding myself thinking about the two I didn't have.   That first baby would be 44 now.  I always imagined it was a girl although I never knew.  Maybe that's the baby that would grow up and make me into a grandmother.   Maybe that would have been the one that was mellow and helped me be a mellower mother.    We talked about the name Symphony Sky.   Yesterday we were watching something on TV and one of the characters was a woman named "Sky".   We both noticed it and talked about Symphony Sky.    The other lost baby was too early to really have much of a fantasy life about.   It was just a piece of me for a few short weeks and then it was gone.   A blob in the toilet.  A dream not realized.

Everyone grieved for the first baby.  Nick-named "Nabisco".  Everyone knew I was pregnant.  I looked it.  I planned for a baby- even bought baby clothes and cloth diapers.    The other one- Nick and I knew.  And then it was gone.

This is my 95 year old friend holding hands with her first great grandchild.