Dear Mom, Happy Thanksgiving

Dear Mom,

It’s been 5 months without you, today. It is also Thanksgiving. My first major holiday without you.

I don’t remember what I had imagined it would be like, the holidays, without you. Whatever it was that I had imagined, the reality is far harder. You should be here.

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It was November 1^st. I laid on the couch for much of the day, unable to motivate myself to seemingly do anything.

I just felt…blah. Depressed, sad, down. I wasn’t really sure. I thought, maybe it’s the shitty weather?

I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t make myself turn on the TV, scroll through Instagram, or anything to occupy my time. I just laid there.

I suddenly realized that something I had been dreading for months – no – years if you count from when you were diagnosed with ALS, had arrived:

The first holiday season without you.

In my mind, “The Holidays” begin November 1, the day after Halloween.

With this sudden realization, I broke down.

As you know, I fucking love the holidays, especially Christmas. You however, hated Christmas.

I laid on the couch and thought about how I felt. Was I excited for the holidays? A little. Was part of me looking forward to them? Yes. Was I also absolutely dreading them at the thought of them without you?

With every fiber in my being.

I decided I wanted to decorate for fall and Thanksgiving. I wanted to do something that felt productive, meditative, and helped occupy my mind. I quickly deconstructed the house of Halloween, and ventured into the yard for some foraged fall decorations.

As I gathered leaves, twigs, and other brown, orange, and dead and fall looking shit from my yard, I had to laugh.

You would have hated this.

I could hear you and just imagine:

“You’re going to bring dead leaves into the house and decorate?!”

Why yes, Mom, I am.

And I am going to make a leaf garland and a leaf wreath.

I could practically hear you roll your eyes. I smiled.

I stood in my kitchen at my island and methodically and meditatively assembled a leaf wreath, inspired by Pinterest. As I glued the leaves around the wreath, I thought, “God damn, I fucking miss you. You should be here. I don't want to do the holidays without you.”

I unmistakably heard your voice sarcastically say, “That wreath is stupid. But I am here.” And I laughed out loud.

Everything reminds me of you. If you loved something, I think of you. If you hated something, I think of you. If you thought something was funny, I think of you.

You are still so present in everything I do. You are never far from my mind, even when I am doing something you would have hated.

"Don't take picture of me EATING!"

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I spent yesterday baking, as I have always done, usually with you, for the past god knows how long. Probably my entire life.

I of course have taken baking to a whole different level of obsession from what you taught me.

You taught me how to make pie crust. You made the best pie.

"Mmm...Pieeeee!"

 This life without you, it’s so hard.

I spent nearly 10 hours baking. While I rolled dough, meticulously put pecan pie filling into tiny mini pies, and carefully trimmed the crispy edges of the mini apple pies off, I cried.

I cried a million tears in my kitchen yesterday as I floured and mixed.

I thought about you how taught us how to make perfect pie crust, how to pinch the edges to make them pretty. I thought about this as I rolled the dough out over and over with your old rolling pin. It felt good to have something in my hands that you used for decades.

As I tossed the scraps aside I thought of all the baby pies you let us create with those scraps as kids. Traditions I will carry on with my own kids.

 

I hadn’t anticipated baking without you being so damn hard. I haven’t baked with you in three years, the last two years it was just too hard for you, but knowing you actually couldn’t be here because you are gone, it was just…different.

In between baking cycles and the tears, I scrolled through old Thanksgiving photos that have now been carefully cataloged thanks to your memorial.

Hot heavy tears rolled down as I scrolled through the photos.

Why aren’t you here?

This life without you is so hard.

I think I cried more yesterday than I have since the day you died.

I just miss you and want to talk to you, and hug you, and give you a kiss on your soft cheeks.

I think what started me off yesterday was an incredibly vivid and realistic dream I had about you.

I have dreamt about you very far and few between since you died, and the dreams are usually of no consequence.

This dream, however, was different.

In it, you were alive. I found out you actually weren’t dead, and I was racing to get to you. I was having trouble getting home, but eventually found you wheeling yourself in a push wheelchair to go buy ice cream. You told me that you had been doing exercises and were getting stronger and better. I asked if you were still going to die. You said you hoped not, but that you would definitely make it until Thanksgiving and to see Jennifer’s new baby and for Christmas. I hugged you and gave you a kiss on your sweet, soft cheek, and we went and bought ice cream.

The dream felt so real and I woke up so fucking desperately sad. I so wanted it to be true. Why can’t this all have been a dream and we were all mistaken that you died?

That of course, isn’t true.

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The speed at which life has gone on without you, even for me, has been remarkable. It sometimes knocks the wind out of me when I think about how “normal” life has become.

So much has changed in the 5 months since you left us. And it’s only been FIVE MONTHS. What will life be like in five years? Or 15 years?

We should have had at least 20 more Thanksgivings together. I feel robbed. I am sure you do too.

It is a tricky balance, one I am far, far from mastering, in how to continue on without you, and still keep you a part of my life.

I talk to you, sometimes just in my head, all the time. It feels good to keep you near.

Your absence is deeply felt, regardless of the positive things that have occurred since your death.

What I’ve begun to realize over the last few months, as I read more about grief, talk to people, and listen to a podcast about grief, is that our relationship is still ongoing. And I likely am not the only one hurting and miss you, you are probably also hurting and missing me as well.

I texted Dad, Jennifer, and Michael and said I was having a tough time. Everyone else was having a hard day in different ways. Michael said not to worry – you’ll be with us today, we just won’t be able to see you.

So today will be hard. Everyone will try their best to make the gravy lump-free like you famously did each year, and we will undoubtedly fail and laugh at the memory.

I will carry you with me all day today. I will carry on traditions you started with us, like eating pie for breakfast, drinking eggnog, and watching the parade on TV, as I am right now.

We will laugh as Hudson eats his bodyweight in mini pies, and it will also sting a little knowing how much joy it would have brought you. But, I am confident you are there.

Your very last meal my mouth

This life without you, is so, so hard.

Happy Thanksgiving, Mom.