The Holidays

The holiday season is upon us and I wish it were not. I keep denying to myself that tomorrow is Thanksgiving - which is a problem since I still need to do some baking. There are more people missing around our dinner table, more evidence of the changes and shifts that families go through when loved ones die. This is from Grandpa's eulogy, posted in February after he died:

"Eat up girl, you're too thin," you'd say as you piled yet another helping on your plate at Thanksgiving. How could I eat up when I'd just been down in the basement "helping" you carve the turkey? You slipped me the best of the turkey whispering delightedly "Now don't tell your Grandma." We'd go upstairs and you would preside over the dinner table in your red flannel shirt, beaming with pleasure at the heaping platters and plates and urging everyone to eat as much as you did - though none of us could keep up.

And that has always been Thanksgiving to me. Dinner was at Grandma's, then at Mom's when Grandma could no longer cook for so many. Grandpa was always carving the bird and sneaking me the best pieces. Grandma would swat him. Aunt Nancy would sneak us candy. Then Grandpa'd pile a plate high, so that he was still eating long after the rest of us were done - but we'd stay at the table just to watch him go for seconds and then for dessert as he bantered and protested that we were too thin and needed to eat more. Now, in five short years, Grandma, Aunt Nancy and Grandpa are all dead. Brian's Mom is facing her first holiday alone.

I'd really just like to ignore the holidays this year. I guess my sister's arrival with the kids at Christmas will make it more festive and less like a big empty loss.