Thanksgiving

We once had a priest at St. Paul's who did a sermon on giving thanks and remembering those for whom we were thankful. I always think about that sermon when we set the table for Thanksgiving, using the best our china cabinet has to offer. He said that it isn't about the beautiful china or the silver but it's about thanking as well as missing those who used to be at the table with us. Looking at the faces around our table this Thanksgiving, I couldn't help but get that awful catch in my throat and the knot in my gut when I remembered those we now miss. Our parents are gone as well as most of our aunts and uncles. We are now on the front line. We are the ones who will be missed one day.

In my parents' home, there was always a revolving door of relatives on Thanksgiving Day. My Uncle Robert, my grandfather's bachelor brother, showed up from time to time for a holiday meal with us. Where he lived from holiday to holiday, I never knew, although once when I was very little, I went with my grandparents to get him out of a "flop house" right before Thanksgiving. That year he stayed with us, sleeping on the back porch, until he sobered up and moved on. It's too late now to ask where he went because the people who could have filled in those blanks are long gone. I wish I'd asked at the time instead of just wondering. Adults back then didn't talk of those matters to children.

We never spent a Thanksgiving with my father's mother at her house. Sometimes Daddy would would make the long drive to her house in the country and bring her back to have dinner with us and my mother's parents. She was not a happy nor loving grandmother at all. I remember her finding fault and sniffing (yes, sniffing) at everything as if she were displeased by the vast amount of food and goodies we had. Her existence was fairly austere and her own hard scrapple life had made her an unhappy old woman by the time my sister and I were born. Daddy was the youngest of her surviving children. The baby of the family had been killed and my dad almost killed in a horrible school bus wreck when they were youngsters. That and a raging alcoholic for a husband had done her in, I guess. At any rate, she was no fun what so ever and we didn't look forward to her presence at the holiday table. I do wish now that I hadn't been so scared of her and had known her better. My daughter now lives in Arkansas, where my dad's mother was born. Each time I've crossed the Mississippi river going from Memphis into Arkansas, I've wondered about her life in the backwoods on a farm. As the story goes, my grandfather, who was on the run (rumor was that he'd killed a black man in a logging camp)saw her "hanging up wash" . She was thirteen and he fell in love with her and soon they married and moved to rural Tennessee. The rest of that story was, according to my father, a sad and humble existence as the wife of an artistic, but alcoholic man.

My other grandparents were the good guys! Mom was an only child, so we had no cousins to steel our thunder. We were the alpha and omega in their eyes. Thanksgiving and all other holidays were spent being loved and adored. My grandmother really didn't cook much, but she could make great gravy, so Mom let her do just that. Mom cooked all the rest of the meals, holidays included.

Now, I am the "mom' who cooks. My happiest days were/are cooking for my family. Being a true southern woman, you can't be in my house for more than a minute before I offer a drink or food or both. Making no apologies, it's just the way I am.

Last weekend our oldest grand-daughter came over for a sugar cookie baking session. Her hands worked the dough, rolled and cut it and then, after baking the cookies, she carefully decorated each one. Never mind that they are not "Martha Stewart' beautiful; to me they are just the prettiest goodies ever. Each sprinkle, each dribble of icing, represents a frozen minute of time when the rest of the hurry-up mode of the holidays stopped for us! Like the cookie-baking with my mom, she will, hopefully, remember the sweet smells and the shared time with me.

In a couple of days, our God-daughter will come over for an afternoon of baking and decorating cookies too. She is all grown-up, well almost if you count being a senior in college. We have repeated our Christmas tradition each year since she was two years old. How the time has flown! She tells me that after graduation in May she will go to grad school next year. Huh? Do grad students bake cookies with their Godmothers? I pray that they do and that she will carve out a tiny bit of time to do just that with me. Getting out the cookie cutters this year, I found a paper cutout that years ago was a pattern of her hand. the year we made those cookies she painted rings on the tiny fingers and we laughed about them. Will a real ring be on her finger soon? I don't know why I saved that pattern, but I' m glad that I did. One day I hope to show it to her daughter while we bake.

Time is the best gift anyone can give as well as receive.