I'm going to write down my memories from time to time and put them here. Some will be stories my sons have heard a million times but I want to save for them anyway. Others will be things that spark a thought of how I became the me I am today. This is the first of them.
Over the river and through the woods,
I celebrated Thanksgiving last night. Not on a table but in my mind. My memories of Thanksgivings past filled my mind with familiar smells and faces I knew and loved. My Uncle was a doctor. He had a practice in a small town. He and his wife raised six children there, in the same white house that doubled as his office. My Aunt was his nurse. Every Thanksgiving we made that drive from our city to their town. We'd leave early with a station wagon full of cookies, Christmas gifts and the smell of my Mom's "good" perfume. Not the Avon stuff she wore on less special days but a dab or two of her Chanel No. 5 she kept in a place of honor on her dresser. We had no dvd player to keep us amused so we watched the world go by. We'd call off each landmark we passed "I see the white church", "there's the huge oak tree". Each thing we passed meant we were that much closer. The ride always seemed more beautiful when the snow had made the trip before us. The lakes looked much nicer wearing a coat of ice.
I took this same ride with my older brother when my Uncle passed. I did it without Map-quest to guide me, I memorized it long ago. The huge Oak is gone now but the white church is still there.
We'd arrive at my Uncle's and unpack in one giant cloud of people. I'd go first to the dining room to see if anything was new. I'm not a fan of taxidermy. Damn things keep looking at me no matter which way I turned. My Uncle got paid in many ways; cash, cow, taxidermy. He had a giant zoo of wildlife from around that part of the woods. Birds, critters, even a fish or two. They lived around the dining room and I always looked because when you're pretty sure something might come to life and pack your eyes out you kinda want to know what type of create it might be.
I was the youngest cousin so I'd have to tag along behind my brother once we got there. I'd give up after a bit and head to the kitchen where my Aunt, Mom, and two girl cousins would be bustling around, each with a job to do. My stuffing is her recipe, my applesauce bread from my mother. I would curl up in a chair in the corner and learn against the radiator and listen to them talk and catch up.
But when the football started I'd head back into the den. That's where my Uncle held his place. My Dad wasn't much of a sports fan so he'd read the paper and pretend he wasn't napping behind the pages he held up. My cousins would be in and out,almost men with lives of their own and friends to visit while home. But me, I'd sit on the footstool and watch football. I became fascinated when a cousin had explained yards and penalties to me. My Uncle was a stern man. A tall man with a firm opinion on just about everything. Smiles from his were earned not freely handed out.
My Uncle hated the Detroit Lions and would treat us all to a lecture about them. Turns out their quarterback went to a rival college and he graduated with a bias. I'm a square peg of a person. I decided to embrace the Lions. I'm pretty sure, looking back, that I had bigger and brass-er balls than any of the male family members. I wish I could remember the look on my Uncle's face the first time I announced my newly found loyalty. I only remember it being both of us in there, with Dad asleep behind his small town news paper, and we emoted every play in the game and many years later when I visited him in his Alzheimer's facility he remembered me loving those damn Lions and smiled. A smile earned over many Thanksgiving games.
Being that my Uncle was a doctor there wasn't a year where he didn't leave the table to stitch someone up or even deliver a baby that came a week too early. The buzzer would ring or we'd hear the fire trucks go by and he'd excuse himself and leave the table. My Aunt would follow and his children would just keep eating without looking up. This was normal to them. Nothing to see here folks, get back to your eating.
And we ate. All of us at a table that grew four times it's size every Thanksgiving day. We needed it for all the people, especially as my cousins married and had kids. We also needed it for the food it held. All the favorite and a few new. So much food and so many people.
And we ate. And ate. And ate.
And laughed and cried and sang along to the radio. The women in the kitchen warm and cozy. The men in the den full and happy.
I went there in my head last night. Trying to remember the fuzziest memories and wondering why we don't do this anymore. I guess we all grew up and then one by one our parents died. My Aunt, then Uncle, my Dad then Mom. Some cousins on one coast, a few on the other, the rest in between or overseas. We've all got grand-kids, we've all got lives. And we've all got memories. For me Thanksgiving is still 'over the river and through the woods' so many many years ago. How lucky I was to live it, how lucky am I to still remember it.
