Thanksgiving and other milestones

I think Thanksgiving is one of the most underrated and under appreciated holidays on our calendar.  Each year Christmas is moved up further and further in the retail and pop culture calendar till soon we will be seeing Christmas commericals during St. Patricks Day.    My Mom was always the Thanksgiving culinary artist in our family.  The two years before she passed and actually many years before that, my Dad was the one that really cooked the turkey with input from my mother.  So this year my dad had planned to buy a ham and cook that and take it to our family dinner.  However, my great aunt was disappointed that she would not get her turkey carcasse this year.  Each year my family gives my Aunt the turkey carcasse and she picks it clean and makes turkey and barley soup. 

So with much consideration and thought, my dad and I are going to make the turkey and dressing this year.  Its going to be a considerable effort, and something that I am sure my mother will find most amusing.  The dressing will not be hers, for sure, but I never liked oyster dressing anyway.  My dad is excited about it.  I think he wants to show that he can cook just as good as my mom and also anything that reminds him of the normalcy of our old life makes him happy.  

As the holiday's approach, I am actually very happy and excited to see them.  I think that the past two years were such a trial with my mom's sickness that this year is much lighter, despite her abscence.  There will be moments of sadness, I'm sure, but I hope that it is tinged more with happy remembrance.

As the year closes, I also am thinking of all the people that have touched my life through my mom's illness and wondering what they are thinking this time of year.     Those that I know from the Shydrager (MSA) list, I know have lost family members during the past year too as well as those that are still fighting this terrible disease.      A former employee lost his father this week, another former employee  lost his great aunt and great grandmother.   Each death reminds me of my mom, my grandmother, my grandfather and everyone else that has gone before me. 

Death is part of life.  I always thought that was corny, but it makes a lot of sense now.