Edrie

Thanksgiving 2003

Today is Thanksgiving, and however the holiday tradition originated (pilgrims and harvest) it has come to mean food and family, usually in that order. In my order however, it was always the other way around. Perhaps it is simply because I do not live near my family that I long for them especially at this time of year.

One year my brother drove his Yugo eight hours in the freezing cold to make it for dinner. Hoping (knowing) that the gas tank would be refilled with a furtive gift from Dad�s wallet before attempting the return trip. It was so cold and clear that morning. I kept stealing glances out of the slightly fogged kitchen window out into the sparkling snow, waiting for him to arrive. The dog knew first and we ran at our separate paces, to the door. Arriving in order from youngest to oldest, my little sister first and my father last. Even at his age he could have beat my sister in a race, but he always had a rambling sense of time, what�s the hurry? He�s coming to us. I was always shy around my brother. He was eight years older then I was and very tall and handsome. I had always envied those pond blue eyes, though I later realized I had similar eyes, but on him, they were dramatic against his darkly freckled face and deep chestnut hair. He always smelled as I thought all men his age must, of Brutt and cigarettes, of slightly musty clothes and car exhaust. No matter what his situation at the time, he would always bring gifts for his little sisters.

My sister and I would giggle (or was it fight) through the rest of the dinner preparation stuffing celery with cream cheese and stealing jewel black olives. I wonder at how much we fought at that age. What was it exactly? It�s hard to remember now when I talk to her about daily life. Now we are only three years and 2000 miles apart, but are not separated now as we were then by rivalry and jealously. A sister is a wonderful thing, but perhaps only after you are both 21. Today I think of my family, knowing that my sister, due to graduate schoolwork load, is spending one of her first Thanksgivings free from family obligations, to work on an important final exam. I know she will still eat Turkey, but I can�t help but feel for her and what she will miss.

Thanksgiving has evolved in my family. My mother always used to make the feast and before I was in college, the whole family would gather at our everyday dinner table laid with our everyday plates (spruced up by the antique serving pieces laden with holiday food) and give thanks for the past year. What I miss most now at my thanksgivings away from the family is the moment at the table where we�ve all just sat down and we turn expectantly to my mother who seemed surprised every year that we want her to say Grace. It is not a normal practice for us to say Grace before an everyday meal, but this is Thanksgiving. We hold hands around the table and bend our heads. I know I should close my eyes, but instead (as I always have) I gaze out of the corner of my left eye at my mother who is radiant in the marbled sunlight streaming in from the foggy kitchen window. We are all at our normal places around the oval table (now with leaves added to maintain the weight of the feast). My mother is at the head and to her right is my sister. I sit next to my sister with my father at the other head; my brother is across from my sister and me. I catch him gazing at my mother as well. Mom seems to pause and remember before thanking God for the basics of food, family and those who are not with us, Amen. Her words sustain us like the food we are about to partake and we lift our heads and blink her dreamy voice away as provisions are already being passed. I wonder now if she will pray for me today half way across the country and for my sister under her mound of terms and facts and figures. A place in my heart tells me she will.

Thanksgivings are no longer primarily around the old family table. In fact the old family table and even the old family house are not a real part of the family anymore. We�ve moved on to other houses and other tables. Thanksgivings (like other holidays) are now rotated among the extended family of new wives and boyfriends and their parents. The old family�s Thanksgivings are replaced with the new families� Thanksgivings with the children in an out as our schedules allow. It has been long since I�ve been able to attend a Thanksgiving at home. Mostly I make a semblance here for my husband and I to eat alone. It�s not as forlorn as it sounds. We much enjoy each other�s company and talk and laugh enough to fill the house. Now it is he and I who stuff celery and steal olives, no longer worrying about my mother�s wrath at the half empty olive bowl. For the first time since we�ve been married we will go to his mother�s this year, where she will cook a feast. I am nervous, as it is her first Thanksgiving in a long time and my first ever where I haven�t really been a part of making the meal. But still I have gathered things to bring pies, olives and deviled eggs, flowers for her and wine for me. I know when we sit down to our plates at her table I will be thinking of my family and what they are doing and missing their laughter and their Grace.

Perhaps my finest memory of the holiday involved my father�s tradition. My father was an old farmer to the core. No matter the worldly traveling he did as a youth, when he returned home to the farm to raise his family like he raised his crops, the land and he reconnected and were symbiont. If my father was awake he was outside doing this or that. He rose at dawn to work in the fields or help a neighbor or build a house or cabinets. There was always something to clean or fix or haul. Though when he sat in his chair (and it was his alone) he became like the land in winter, dormant and snoring awaiting the first warming rays of spring. His holiday meal tradition did not vary from his everyday meal tradition. He would eat like he had two hollow legs and push his extended belly away from the table. He would slowly (hoping we would not to notice?) make his way to his chair perhaps thinking he would watch some TV before going out to the shop to repair that hinge he had meant to fix. In minutes his snores would resonate throughout the house. My sister and I would always roll our eyes at the same time we smiled. I always thought his earsplitting snoring was his body�s way of making itself heard for my father was a very quiet man when he was awake. No matter how deafeningly we were cleaning the kitchen or banging the dishes or how loudly our 1970s dishwasher would churn, he would sleep on.

Since my father has passed away there won�t be a new memory of that tradition in the context of the current way my family spends their Thanksgivings. But like the pilgrims and the harvest and food and family, some traditions live on even when new traditions have over taken. I might not live near my family now, or take part in their Thanksgiving, but my memories sustain me as my mother�s Grace once did.