Thanksgiving, Plus A Little Bit About Nazis!

Ah, the ubiquitous Thanksgiving post. I believe that I’m contractually obligated to write about either what I’m thankful for or what I’ve cooked/plan on eating today. Neither are what I really feel like writing about right now. So I will go with my usual method: Try to Please Everyone A Little Bit, Thus Actually Making No One Really Happy But They Can’t Complain Because Hey, You Tried. (Note to self: may want to investigate coming up with either a new method, or a snappy acronym for this one.)

Of course, I’m thankful for so much. I have my health (and health insurance in case that changes—no small thing, that), my family, this little baby who’s sleeping angelically, if corpulently, on my lap as I write this. I like my job, which is more than many can say, and I have ample opportunity in that job to note how very, very lucky I am. In fact, as I list things, I become irritated with myself for not being happy all the time, singing to the little birds that alight on my finger and feeding my pet unicorn, for so blessed am I.

We’re having Thanksgiving with some very good friends of ours. This will be our third Thanksgiving together, and my friend E and I delight in the fact that we’ve created a new tradition from what started as an idle conversation wherein we realized that neither of us had family-related plans for the holiday. (You might think that looks like a huge run-on sentence, but lemme tell you, I’m writing this in Word, so I can copy and paste it later, because our internet is currently down, and Word’s little grammar Nazis* don’t seem to think that’s a run-on. On the other hand, they also didn’t flag that last sentence, either, so perhaps they’ve taken the day off.) Our friends have two little kids who love Tankbaby and like to bring him toys that they think he’ll like, much like my parents’ yellow Lab used to do with new visitors to the house. We’re having your basic turkey-mashed-potatoes-pumpkin-pie meal, with various accommodations being made for lactose intolerance (E and the kids), geographically-influenced taste requirements (E’s husband), and overall pickiness (the kids and…um, me). It will be everything a family meal should be: lots of work for one grand meal, of which the kids will eat three molecules between the two of them, and then the formal Packaging Of The Leftovers ceremony will commence. I am beyond touched that we have created this family out here, that E’s kids talk about Tankbaby as being their “little brother.” Please don’t let anything that follows make you think that I’m not grateful for this. Because I really, truly am.

And I’d trade it all to get to have Thanksgiving with my mom again.

Mom died in April of 2007. That year, the holidays were a bit subdued. That Thanksgiving, Dad went out to Iowa to be with his family, my sister went with her now-fiance’s family, and that was the first year we went to E’s house. At Christmas, I flew home, but as a family my dad and sister and I agreed: no tree, no decorations. Not in a “Fuck you, Noel!” kind of way, but just because that was Mom’s thing, the holiday decorations, and it didn’t feel right to do them without her. Also, the year before, what had turned out to be her last holiday season, Mom had been really sick and trying to cover it and…well, those were best memories left buried a little longer. So we gave gifts, we went to my aunt’s house on Christmas Day, and we celebrated in the way that felt right to us.

When I came back to town, my friend J asked how my holidays had been. I explained that they’d been nice and it was great to see my family again, and that of course there had been kind of a shadow. “But the first year is always the hardest, huh?” J hesitated and said, “Well, not to scare you, but I’ve actually heard that the second year is the hardest. You know, because the first year, everyone is thinking about it being the first year without the person, and so there’s extra care taken, blah blah blah. But by the second year, a lot of people have moved on and are ready to go back to the way things always were, and you’re left being like, ‘but um, she’s still gone and I’m still sad’.”

She was right. Each holiday, each birthday, each life event that happens without Mom still hurts. Maybe not as freshly as the first, when the grief is still so new, but in a different, more subtle way. Because each event or season that passes reminds you that, not only is that person not here for this, they will never be here for this again. Ever. And you think that you understand that, but it still grinds into you with an insistence that makes you realize that, for a little while, you’d forgotten that. It’s not the heavy black grief that sends you weeping into the bathroom at Aunt Linda’s house; it’s a very light, silvery cloak that covers you for a couple days. It makes you sleep a little less well, makes you a little less hungry. You find it hard to care about whether the turkey is brined or basted, or whether you can get SuperSaver shipping from Amazon.

(And at this point in my thinking, I always imagine the voices of those who would say well-intentioned but awful things like, “But you can’t always be sad about this,” or, “But can’t you be happy for what you have?” or “But you don’t want to ruin your holidays being sad.” To which I say, “Watch me,” and “Yep, sure, I can be grateful while still being a little sad,” and “You’re right, I don’t. I sure do wish I wasn’t so sad.” And, oh yeah, BITE ME, ASSHOLE. Talk to me when your mom dies. Or not, because maybe you’re not as close to your mom as I was to mine. But surely there’s someone you’re close to, someone that you would still be mourning, even after some magical 12-month deadline was past. I’ll bet that you’ll find that someone telling you to not be sad only makes you a) still sad and b) also angry and wanting to punch that person.)

Does that sound awful? I don’t mean to imply that I plunge into a dark despair around mid-November. I still love this time of year. I am a sap for Christmas-themed commercials (remember that coffee commercial a few years ago—maybe Folgers?—where the older son comes home and starts the coffee and the little sister comes downstairs and hears him and then the parents come down and he’s surprised them by coming home for Christmas and oh Lord, someone get me a tissue), I love It’s a Wonderful Life and turkey and stockings and the whole shebang. And of course I’m delighted at the idea of Tankbaby’s first holidays (THAT HIS GRANDMOTHER WILL NEVER SEE—oh, you get the idea). It’s not that I don’t get the joy out of the celebration, but there’s an…awareness of The One Who’s Not There that is impossible not to feel. Not instead of the joy, but in addition to it. It just means it’s impossible to feel the one without the other.

So don’t feel bad for me today, or anything. I’m OK. I’m happy and I’m sad and that’s how it is. Now go and hug all your people, because you can bet I’m sure as hell going to hug mine.

*About the use of “Nazi” as a term meaning “strict police-like force”: Last year at work, someone had gathered all of the various lunchbags, Tupperware, etc, that had been left in the kitchen and put it all out with a note that said, “If this is yours, you have until Friday to take it home or it will be THROWN OUT! Love, the Kitchen Nazis.” I waited until after that Friday and noted that this very cool thermal lunchbag was still sitting there. I left my own note that read, “Dear Kitchen Nazis, I have taken the yellow bag, since no one has claimed it, and given it a good home rather than have it be thrown out. If someone comes looking for it, send them my way! Love, Falling.” A few hours later a co-worker approached me and told me that he had been in the kitchen when someone from another department saw my note and began loudly talking about how inappropriate it was to use the term “Nazis” and how offensive that could be to people. Co-worker defended me, saying he was sure I didn’t mean it that way as I myself am Jewish (I’m not, but for some reason he thought I was). Turns out the original note had gotten thrown away, so it wasn’t apparent that I was addressing an entity who had chosen to call themselves Nazis. Anyway, I was mortified, and am now terribly conscious of any time I use the word Nazis that I am being offensive, or, at the very least, inconsiderate. So, if any of you are Jewish and offended, I apologize. If you’re Nazis and offended, well, fuck off, Nazis.