Avoiding Getting Smacked

Thanksgiving is approaching, quickly at that.  And I am trying.  I really am.  I’m trying to focus on shopping lists and how to laugh about the possible catastrophe in the making – my sister and I have to recreate my mom’s stuffing and we have really no clue what we’re going.  We really don’t.  No flipping clue.  And I’m trying to laugh about that instead of cry, although it is really hard. And every day gets just a tiny bit harder.

I told my sister that our mom appears and smacks me in the head while I’m trying to make her stuffing, I’m out.  I will leave the kitchen and she’ll be on her own.  That woman used to smack me, threaten my life and threaten my dinner if I spent too much time in her kitchen as she cooked so it wouldn’t surprise me if she found a way to hit me if she thought I was making a mess of her stuffing.

I’m trying to not picture the empty chair next to me, the quiet that will be there without her complaining and without her inappropriate comments.   (One year she said the word “orgy” during dinner, I don’t remember the context but I do remember my sister almost spitting mashed potatoes across the table at me.)  The day is about family and about being thankful for what you have; I’m just not sure that I can focus solely on what I have and not on what I don’t have when she’s not sitting next to me pounding back the wine and making inappropriate comments.  This year has come and gone so quickly – she’ll be gone a year in just a matter of weeks really – and yet it sometimes feels like I’m living in this stagnant place that hasn’t moved forward one inch.  I can still clearly see the night that I drove home from the hospital in the snow storm; I can still clearly see the snow falling as I sat in a parking lot, talking to my Dad about having her admitted into the hospital.  I can still  feel the cold air rushing in through the cracks around the door that lead to the roof in the ICU waiting room.  And I can still see her, hooked up to machines, my Dad sitting next to her saddened and hopeful that somehow she would wake up.  It’s hard to be thankful with those pictures in my head.  I’m trying, but attempting to stick turkey heads on the bodies of all the people I see isn’t helping – I tried picturing them in underwear and that was just disturbing.  Maybe that day I’ll just focus on avoiding the smack in the head – like I did most years (some years I sought it out, I’ll admit it).  And I’ll focus on not crying, and I’ll focus on making a dinner that she would enjoy.  I  miss her a lot, and these days, I miss her more.  Looking forward to the days when this is easier.  Maybe they come soon.