Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is the most heavily travelled day of the year. I will be going to the Greater Chicagoland area to visit my husband Gary's family. And I always have fun. But it is tough, because my mom, according to my sister who took her to 4 doctors this week, has an arthritic brain. RA effects the brain and the other organs, too. I've always said that as difficult as the disease is, it wouldn't kill her. Shiiit.

So, back to Thanksgiving. My Dad has been gone for one Thanksgiving. He's still dead, nothing has changed for him, except that i'm down to one parent and i want to spend Thanksgiving with my mom. I want to take part in the "way we always do it". I am comforted that I know the stories, i know the recipes, i know the difficulties. In my mind, it has never changed, but of course it has. so when i think of the kids, my memory is the Originals now aged 19-25, not the Babies, aged 11-2. when I think of Thanksgiving, i think of the Hudson's Thanksgiving Day Parade, standing curbside as marching bands and Santa pass by and Hudson's is long gone. I want to wake up and find my mom and dad laughing and cleaning the turkey at 5:30 in the morning. I'm glad that I can still make new memories, but i want the old ones to still be true. They are memories of people who want the traditions I want and are willing to go to sometimes absurd lengths to make sure those traditions are upheld. I can only hope that my half-assed efforts to make the holidays special mean something to someone else's future.

Things You Thought You'd Never Hear

I never thought my daughters would stop being babies. I was totally pleased with them as toddlers and elementary school students, and now the youngest of the three is at 6th grade camp. Although I never expected it, I like it now that they're older. I like them.

I had an after school snack with Gabi at the local mid-eastern restaurant (lentil soup, spinach pie and baklava). We talked about our days: she rode the bus and smelled like her seat partner, she's busting her instructors' chops at Wayne State University and she told a great story in which a male friend got a tour of the WSU campus, was freaked out, got back to his car to find it being actively violated by a thief and is now transferring to Oakland instead.

Gabi told me that my divorce from her father was less of an issue than I think it is. Then why has it me hurt so bad to "wreck" their lives? She intimated she was acted pissy for the past 10 years because she thought she should.

I still worry that I will misuse my mother-power and traumatize my children. Then the realization hits me that they aren't children. And maybe Gabi never was. Maybe she was just pissy because I didn't, from the start, recognize her as the companion she is today.