Thanksgiving

Our first Thanksgiving without my mother came and went like any other day. Except it wasn’t any other day. It was like any other Thanksgiving in that Chris and I prepared and cooked for days. We got up early and put the turkey in the oven then began final preparations for the family and friends who would be arriving for lunch. Everyone arrived, we ate, we visited and they left. It wasn’t until the house was completely quiet that I fully realized the extent of her absence.

I have been cooking Thanksgiving for years but it hit me that I would never eat her cooking again. Though it’s her recipes I have used all this time, it’s not the same. She had not really cooked much in a long while. However, she would bring the cauliflower salad every year. She wanted to contribute in some way. Ashley and Allison took that on this year. They did a fantastic job. And, as I scooped it onto my plate I thought about her and her insistence on bringing something. She was so stubborn. It made me smile.

So, here we are the first holiday without her came and went as I know the rest will. My earthly, selfish side is angry and heartbroken but my spiritual side knows she is feasting at the side of Jesus.

(I dreamed of her for the first time last night. She, her parents and her brother were all in my kitchen. I suppose they were all with me for Thanksgiving…if only in my dreams.)

Finality

The last piece of finality to the dream from which I cannot awake has been completed. The marker notifying the world that my mother Judy Yvette Eskew rests in this place has been installed. The marker that tells everyone who may venture by when she entered this life and when she exited it. The marker that gives a brief description of her various titles because there isn't enough room to properly describe everything she was to her family and friends.  The marker that will mirror my daddy's when the time comes with "together forever." That is all. The final part of the permanence of her absence.

I thought of her today while getting my nails done (actually, she's on my mind all the time).  I thought about how pretty her nails looked for her viewing. I thought about how much she enjoyed getting her nails done. I thought about the fact that manicures were the last grandmother/granddaughter outing she and Ashley had together.

Tonight, I'm planning our Thanksgiving menu and making my grocery list. While flipping through my cookbook I turned a page and there it was, a recipe in my mother's handwriting. Handwriting. Just ink on paper. But so much more than that.

 Seemingly benign things invoke an emotion. That is my life now. Part of my new normal. To know that when I least expect it something is going to pull thoughts of my mother from the back of my mind to the very front and center of it. Kind of funny in a way considering she loved to be the center of attention.