my mom always hosted thanksgiving at her home. almost all of my thanksgiving memories and traditions involve her in some way. she would wake up very early thanksgiving day and start working on her stuffing. the pungent smell of onions,celery, and sausage sauteing in butter and herbs would creep up the stairs and invade my morning dreams. as a young child i remember not liking that smell very much because it was too strong, but it grew on me and to this day just thinking of that smell makes it come alive and takes me right back to thanksgiving mornings in my mother's kitchen.
the past few years my mother was too sick to host thanksgiving. in fact, it was thanksgiving 2005 that i first realized that there was something horribly wrong with my mom. she usually entertained well into the evening long after dinner was cleared from the table and dishes were washed. she would put on a pot of coffee and sit at the dinner table with my aunts and sip coffee and smoke cigarettes and chat away the evening, never seeming to tire. but that year she disappeared into the living room and sat in the recliner, dish towel still over her shoulder, and said she was tired. i remember my one aunt from my father's side expressing concern to me and i agreed that something was not right with my mom. the next thanksgiving was the last one that my mom hosted, and this year she wasn't there at all.
this year i went to her kitchen the night before thanksgiving and dug out a casserole dish that i always used to make pineapple casserole, she at some point designated my holiday assignment and i now make as if it was always my own. i made that casserole in my own kitchen this year on thanksgiving day. i thought of her with every step of the recipe. i even played christmas music like she would have done.
the rest of the day wasn't as bad as i thought it would be. though there were moments of quiet sadness i know we each experienced, it wasn't as sad as i expected. there was actually comfort in remembering all of the things she had taught me. comfort in following the tasks and traditions of the day she essentially designed many years ago for us and recreated every year. i would love to wake up again to the smell of my mom cooking her stuffing with christmas music playing from her record player. sometimes, if i think about it hard enough, i can almost get there.
