So it happened…. All the planning and the cooking.
The free turkey came from GF of #1. Pretty cool! My family knows the challenges I have experienced this year. Unemployment hurts.
I have continued on my path of positive thoughts, and I kind of continue to experience the beneficial effects of the positive thoughts. Free turkey… the strange acquisition of $200 of gift cards to a local grocery store, by virtue of my ex-husband. YES, my ex husband provided me with those cards as he “thought it would make the Thanksgiving dinner easier to prepare”.
I could comment about the guilt her feels, or the fact that he knew the kids wanted to be with me, and not him and his new family. I could write about almost falling off the chair when he texted me to say that he had put those beautiful gift cards in my mail box, but I am not going to. That would be negative.
I am going to simply continue to write about the beauty of positive thinking.
I wanted my family with me. I wanted a traditional turkey dinner. I wanted to give thanks for the new job, and the love of these now big, once little people who wanted to sit with me and eat their holiday meal which was not as fancy as it used to be. I stopped caring if the dishes matched. That’s not a sad thing. It’s just a fact. I choose what I want to be important to me now.
Strangely, I wanted to give thanks for the future daughter in law who wanted to help, either because she truly loves me, or more importantly, because she loves my son.
So, it happened. Thanksgiving came and went with all the joy that it could. It was the first one without my mother. This was her holiday, because strangely enough, she loved turkey. It was a true treat for her to eat the meal, and every lunch or leftover dinner that came after. As she threw away the remains, she always reminded me to make another turkey before it got too warm outside to do so.
Damn it. I really missed her this year. I used her secret recipe for cranberry sauce, minus the plain gelatin and killed my hands cutting crosses into chestnuts ( so they would not explode in the oven) to roast them for the stuffing, all the while thinking she would come up from her room and sit with me as I cooked… just as soon as she aroma filled the house. She would share stories about her childhood and growing up… I could smack myself now for every covert eye roll then. Sadly that could not happen; she never came upstairs.
I cooked and cooked, seemingly using every pot and plate in the house, and stared at the cranberry sauce thinking about a lipstick I used to have that was the same color. I have moved on to fainter colors, and I wonder why…
So dinner happened… I felt young amongst the kids, and we laughed as the conversation amazingly turned to everything that you ever wanted to know about farting but were afraid to ask. ( Two boys at the table… what do you expect?) I learned a lot that I never knew, for example, termite farts are greatly responsible for global warming. Hey! It’s on the internet, so it must be true.
It doesn’t really matter; we were together. It was all I wanted.
Leftovers the next day took an interesting turn. The kids randomly started talking about how their father is no different with their half sister than he was with them. She seemingly pays minimal attention to him, and he pats her on the head as his show of love. 0 for 4, as Son #1 put it. Sad.
The boys recounted the night that we told them we were getting divorced. I have no memory of this, but they both do, clear as day. They both remember him saying that they can choose who they wanted to live with. They remember crying at the thought of leaving mommy. He let it go. We reap what we sow…. memories last. Just as I thought they were well adjusted kids, I find out that they harbor these sad memories. I blocked them out long ago.
We reap what we sow…. I will continue to think of the positive. It seems to be working, I think.
What more could I ask for as I plan for the new year?
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