Thanksgiving (An updated excerpt from After the Flowers Die)
Maple leaves grace the ground. The hummingbirds have migrated to a warmer climate. I’ve stacked firewood for the upcoming winter. Thanksgiving is but days away. My shopping list (and first-time catering order for a holiday) has started, but the graciousness of my adult children, and their love of cooking, will not only complete, but celebrate the day.
Seven years ago, after almost a decade and a half of my mom’s cancer battle, I was called home. It was surprising, given my mother’s perseverance, to make Thanksgiving and Christmas, most likely so she could wear her red sweater that only she, with her blue eyes and big smile, could pull off. Half expecting her to rebound by the time I was there, since my siblings and I had been called home multiple times, I knew the drill. I delighted in the three-hour drive of glorious mountains, and knew the good stops for coffee and snacks, when the cell signal would drop, even when I would tire of news radio and switch to 70s rock.
By the time I got to my mother, her speech was incoherent, but she spoke to me, reams of words I couldn’t understand. Not knowing what to do, I nodded my head and would bring up regular concerns she had this time of year. Tammi was decorating the tree. Instead of having to order books, why didn’t Mom gift books from my parents’ collection to her grandchildren? This seemed to enliven my mother, as she loved nothing more than paring down the items in her house. “I’d rather see you kids get things now and enjoy them while I’m still here,” my mother often said, as if her motto.
Standing by her side, my siblings and I took turns visiting. Mom loved having her children about her. My brother tweaked her nose like he did every time he saw her. My sister rubbed her hands. My other brother leaned in for a kiss.
“She was speaking so well last night,” my sister said. My mother stared at me so intensely, as if trying to communicate something, but I could not discern her thoughts, a regret I have to this day.
At the time, my siblings lived nearby her. Being the lone out-of-towner, I worried about the twenty-two family members coming to my house. Privately, the doctor told me Mom had several days to go before her heart would give out. “Go home. Get your dinner in order, then come back,” she said. For the first time in twelve years, I listened to a doctor’s prediction. My brothers and sister gave me their blessing.
“Mom, I’m going to run home and get the tables ready, then come back.” My children and their spouses, who always rallied for the family’s needs, would be able to cook, feast and pull off this most special dinner with excellence. I could do what I needed in a snap without Mom missing me.
At home, having brought my younger daughters’ their favorite Chinese food, we gathered around the table, and I listened to their lives. As soon as we finished, my phone buzzed. My sister’s face popped up on the screen, and I knew. It was just like Mom to wait until after dinner, not to interrupt.
“She’s gone, sweetie.” My sister spoke other words, then held the phone to Mom’s ear, just as she had Dad’s. “I love you, Momma.” Never would I sleep next to her again, the habit begun on the night my father passed, so she wouldn’t be alone. Never would Mom wear the vibrant St. John suits she so loved. But free of that hated wheelchair, she was.
I went where I had two years earlier when my father had died, years earlier when my neighbor had passed, then his wife. The side porch was my refuge from the storm, my quiet place, where the dogwood berries had turned red, and the old oak’s trunk, so many feet wide, had long been veined by honeybees. Here, out in nature, I sobbed, as I had with the others, as I had listening to so many heartbreaks, this place where the sunrise greeted me only after the leaves fell.
My mother was gone. My father was gone. It’s the closest I’ve come to feeling orphaned, so unlike the hardships my adopted daughters experienced, but a deep wrenching, all the same. My parents were the people on this planet who had known me my entire life. Through the sweet times and bad ones, they encouraged, blessed, raised a whole lot of red flags because this rebellious one needed them, and sent me roses once on my birthday when I was in college, and a poinsettia, and smoked trout every year. I did plenty wrong and right, as they did, yet I was their people, part of the whole family story that happens when a Fleenor/Ramey meets a Leonard/Kaylor.
As I plan for this year’s Thanksgiving, I recognize the anniversaries of their passing and wish so badly I could kiss their cheeks one more time, sit on the back porch with my dad and talk cattle and politics, watch Mom rearrange her drawers for the umpteenth time. Many times, I have, as one in her sixth decade, wanted my parents to lean on, to know someone more adult than I still parented me. Other days, I am so wrapped in living that their passing isn’t on my radar. And I feel no guilt. Just a certain peace that life is moving forward to that moment in time when my children become the oldest generation.
There’s still so much work I look forward to doing before leaving this world. New creative endeavors, asset management, farm ideas. But for this moment, the best I leave my children is the joy of gathering around a table, whether takeout or turkey, where differences might arise, but love overrides. Family stories and values stretch back generations. Laughter and concerns share equal footing. Being together, during the better and worse, is the best legacy we leave our loved ones.
Ponder Point: Consider not saddling your grown children and their families with a particular day to celebrate the major holidays. Consider celebrating Thanksgiving on a Wednesday, Christmas days before or after. This frees them to develop their own traditions and memories. Gift them with the joy and relief of staying home with their little ones.
