Screw the Turkey. And the Stuffing.

My childhood didn’t include extended family descending like biblical locusts for a day of gluttony, and I’ve never taken part in a Turkey Bowl. The thought of cranberry jelly oozing through my teeth sends a shiver up my spine, and I could outlast Ghandi if bean casserole was the only thing left on earth to eat. For me, Thanksgiving was just one of those no-school-no-work-lots-of-food days.

And then I met my husband.

Who also viewed Thanksgiving as one of those no-school-no-work-lots-of-food-extra-hours-on-my-bicycle days. The first couple of years, no turkey came within a mile of our kitchen. We slept in late, went to bed early and watched football while we snacked on snack-y things and drank out of mason jars.

As soon as the vows were spoken our respective families began circling and in a pre-emptive strike before our offspring became the spoils of war, we laid out our holiday battle strategy. Canadian Thanksgiving for one. American Thankgsiving for the other. Our house for Christmas.

For 10 years we stood our ground, even as the different camps subtly campaigned for changes. Stuffing our toddling son and barely born daughter into car seats, we suffered through tantrums and screaming and pleasantries. We held our tempers as my figure received its annual evaluation, grit our teeth as cousins bullied cousins, and suffered the digestive insults of a mountain of fat and butter. And we fell into bed giving thanks that Thanksgiving was over.

And then my husband died.

Exactly one month later I made the trek to his family’s house. Alone save two screaming children, I forced turkey into a digestive track that recoiled against sustenance at a table where he loomed unspoken. A year later, resigned to the fact that everything had changed but refusing to accept that it had, the air was uncomfortable as serving spoons clinked and unspoken questions went unanswered. Another year passed and as turkeys around the nation ran for cover, passive acceptance became fiery anger as another Thanksgiving loomed on the horizon. He was gone but nothing had changed.

And with one scoop of buttery mashed potatoes, everything did.

This year there will be snack-y things and Turkey Trots, new places and snow falling. The air will be filled with laughter, not silence. We’ll throw footballs and ride bikes, and we’ll drink hot chocolate as we deck the halls. We’ll remember stories of Thanksgivings past, and we’ll feast on the things we like. 

Unlike last year, when my relationship status was served up for discussion alongside squishy cranberry jelly. Neither of which should be on the menu.

Snap Peas.

“This is your center, and this is your quarterback. Who snaps the ball and passes it?”

“The knife?”

It’s come to this – football analogies to explain the finer points of wielding cutlery. Because I am simply out of ideas. And because if I have to crawl under the table to pick up one more kernel of corn or flake of fish the resident chef is going on strike. Or we’re moving the kitchen table outside. 

It’s not that my children belong in a cave. They’re just as messy and carefree as anyone else’s kids. But right at that point when table manners and nutritional choices are instilled, our lives went hurtling off the smooth little track we had been riding along with things like routines and table manners. By the time I emerged from the haze I had sunken beneath and friends and family had taken their leave, the damage was done. The kitchen was no longer the center of our home and our family. 

It was ground zero.

In the morning it was cold and empty and at night it was heated with anger and frustration. It wasn’t just because he was gone. It was because it was his domain, relinquished to me only for the purposes of cleaning and cookie baking. When he was here, I could happily hand over the spatula to someone who truly liked using it. Once he was gone, I didn't dislike being thrust into hell’s kitchen.

I loathed it.

Months after he was gone I rushed through the dinner hour, brushing aside etiquette and the food pyramid in favor of ease and efficiency. As I rushed them through their adequately balanced meals, I avoided the table and raced through the dishes. 

Somewhere after the first year had passed I cautiously took my place, returning to what was left of the family dinner table as familiar conversations, awkward and disjointed, returned. As the second year ran its course, culinary irritation was replaced with comfortable acceptance.

I discovered utensils I didn’t know we owned and vegetables I didn’t know I liked. I learned to navigate my daughter’s eclectic food allergies and adventures were taken as they learned to love new tastes. Bananas and apples were usurped by raspberries and pomegranates, and freshly cooked meats and exotic rices replaced nuggets and fries. As time went on, the kitchen was filled more with the sound of sauté than the microwave’s incessant beeping.

But watching her march the peas down the field, knife snapping them to fork, I know that the kitchen will never really be my domain.

Because even now, there’s football at the dinner table.

Writing Stories in the Stars.

“Mom, the jets go zzzzzffffhhhhhhttttt and spin this part around and then it lifts off and goes into outer space. And this is the engine and here’s where we sit and shoot lasers. We really need one of these.”

I have to admit, the idea has potential.

A jet- zzzzzffffhhhhhhttttting-spinning-lift-offing thingy would get me all the way from A to Z and to every can’t-miss commitment in between. I could leave perpetually-late-and-missing-something behind and hitch my wagon to on-time-and-in-control. At the first sign of traffic gridlock, I could just whip out that handy little laser and clear a path. But until we find a place to put the hockey bag that has a permanent home in the back of my land-locked vehicle, sales might be a little sluggish.

This is the first truly lazy day we’ve had since August. A gloomy and cold November morning – one of those perfect stay-in-your-pjs mornings for watching cartoons under blankets by the fire – when we don’t have to go anywhere. Bellies full of homemade oatmeal and hot bagels dripping with peanut butter and honey, I can hear my daughter commanding her army of Lalaloopsy dolls from the other room while the turtle bangs around and looks balefully down on the chaos from the sanctity of his cesspool. And sprawled on his bed, I am designer to his engineer while he fashions a fleet that will take us to another dimension.

Bare toes peek out while he sits cross-legged in the center of a Lego paradise, head hunched over in determination as he assembles blocks with a boy’s image of the world around him and the one that he imagines.

He looks somehow smaller than the boy that emerged over the summer months. The one that posted the “No Trespassing” sign on his door and who insists on closed doors where once there were none. The one who blushes when I kiss his cheek at the schoolyard gate, but still reaches for my hand walking down the street. The one who wants a computer yet spends hours playing with a rainbow explosion of bricks.

“Mom, someday I’m going to build a ship just like this. And I’ll explore different worlds in space.”

“Can I come? I’ve never been to outer space before.”

“Uh huh. Look, I even made a seat for you guys. Because we’re a family and we take care of each other. You take care of me and her and when I’m big I’ll take care of you and take you to lots of places.”

“Promise?”

“I promise. And you can bring your computer so that you can write stories about us and where we go.”

“Sweetheart, you are my story.”

Little Black Dress.

Ever since Coco dared to thumb her nose at pastels and Audrey stepped out for a monochromatic breakfast, a woman without the perfect LBD is like … well … a 40-ish man without a sports car.

It’s like having a midlife crisis and being trapped in your closet. At the same time.

Each time I’ve needed a little black dress life grinds to a halt at DEFCON 1. I’ve bought, returned, altered, worn and donated at least 50 since achieving adulthood, all in pursuit of finding “the one.” Lace, satin, crepe wool, cotton, jersey, rayon, chiffon. Sheath, shift, A-line, wrap,  v-neck, boat neck, sleeveless, quarter sleeves, capped sleeves, long sleeves. Beaded, sequined, fringed, tiered, slit, simple. Ankle, mid-calf, below the knee, above the knee, well above the knee. I liked something about each one, but never truly loved any of them.

And then my search for the quintessential cocktail dress that showed just enough leg, décolletage and delivered exactly the right body shaping characteristics suddenly became a search for something different.

Little Black Dress? Meet Widow’s Weeds.

In the midst of everything I was suddenly faced with the stark reality that I needed the penultimate little black dress. Something classic yet current. Something befitting the collision of youth, the maturity of motherhood and the wreckage of love interrupted. Surrounded by friends that gently propelled me through the motions of a search I once found irritating and now faced with ambivalence and dread, my fingers moved listlessly through the racks until I found it. Simple, black and loose enough to conceal the increasingly gaunt figure beneath. And like all the rest that came before, I didn’t love it. I despised it.

It hangs quietly in the corner, a relic that I loathe the idea of relinquishing. I’ve worn it since, always in respect and sadness and oddly comforting in its discomfort. Tomorrow I will wear it once again to remember and pay my respects to a man I did not know.

And to honor the woman in the little black dress standing silent and proud before him.

Whispers in the Dark.

“Mommy, I love you.”

“I love you, too, Sweetheart.”

Lying here in the dark, her warm cheek pressed against mine, we both stare into the dark watching the shadows of her butterflies float in the dark and the nightlight’s pink flecks twinkle across the wall. She is afraid of the dark. Afraid of what the nighttime takes away. Someday she will understand that she is not alone. I’m afraid, too.

I love the night, and I hate it with equal measure. In the early years he would call me during a lull in his shift, a few minutes of stolen intimacy when we would share our days and dare to dream about the future. And when he was called away, whispers in the dark.

But time has its way of slipping away unnoticed and youthful dreams were replaced by the fulfillment of family. Night shifts became day shifts and late night phone calls became feet wrapped together under the covers in a good night embrace. Side by side, fingers laced together as each day disappeared into slumber. And still we whispered in the dark.

But the dark deceived me, stealing the warm comfort and replacing it with a lonely chill. In one night, everything changed and the last whisper ricochets inside my memory. Words that had once gently closed each day slammed the door on a lifetime.

I love you.

Sweet dreams.

How to Make Lemonade.

“Mom, how do you make lemonade?”

Anyone who knows me, knows that asking me for culinary or libation guidance is a little bit like trying to sell a swimming pool to an Eskimo. But he is earnest and I am caught off guard. Not because I can’t find my way around Google, but because he isn’t the first to mention lemonade this week.

The other came in the lines of an email from a friend I would not have met had it not been for my husband’s unauthorized departure. In an ironic twist that fate inflicts all too easily, we had read about her loss only weeks before and standing in that kitchen I had felt more connected to this woman I did not know than to any other spouse that had been left behind before. They were young and happy, like we were, with their whole lives ahead of them. They had two children, one boy and one girl, of similar ages to our own. He shared the same calling as my husband. Looking at my husband I told him I could not imagine how she felt at that very moment. And then two weeks later, I knew.

From one suddenly left behind to another. Making lemonade, right?

As a child I loved lemonade, a taste that stayed through my teenage years and well into adulthood. Sweet and sour shaken together with a dash of youth and summertime. But lemonade is as individual as the person. It’s not the ingredients that tempt the palate – it’s the art of making lemonade that does.

In the early years of our marriage, we harvested hundreds of lemons from the yard each year. We froze the juice and savored lemon tarts and moist meringues. We soaked sliced lemons in pitchers of crystal water. We made lemonade.

And then I made my own.

“Sweetheart, I’m not exactly sure. But, we’ll learn together.”

Peeling Back the Layers.

“Big and Floppy. I’m not going to tell you again.”

It’s not like I’m in a position to argue. She’s hovering above me, gently humming torture device dangling in one hand, and if I didn’t like her so much I’d consider telling here where to put it. Big and floppy, indeed. 

I am not sure what has caused me more physical angst in recent years. Grief? Age? Probably equal measures of both. And they’ve enjoyed their little WWF tag-team routine far too thoroughly, which is why this little cocoon of rejuvenation bears a striking similarity to the dungeon under the control of Snow White’s  wicked crone of a stepmother. Lights are dimmed, machines steam like cauldrons bubbling and soothing music that feels less Zen and more Edgar Allan Poe plays as she towers above me and rubs her hands gleefully.

I am a little concerned that she enjoys this so much, but I am not about to argue with a woman who has gone to bat for me against hormones and grief.

When he died, we were overwhelmed with kindnesses – deliveries of food and trips to the park, bills paid and laundry washed. Donations squirreled away for an education we dreamed our children would have. Pictures sorted for the funeral and a house decorated for a cold and lonely Christmas. Toys for them and memorial bike rides for him. And tucked within the hundreds of cards, filled with the notes and names of people that had touched our lives, a gift for me. A simple gift I would not have given myself but that someone, somehow, knew I needed.

I barely spoke that first time, listening only to the whirring of the machines in a desperate attempt to calm the raw nerve endings that flinched at the slightest touch as she worked quietly on the epidermal layer protecting the weeping landscape beneath. In the mirror I saw a woman aged by sadness. She saw a woman still young but simply buried underneath the ashen skin. In the beginning, we endured each other in silence. But as time went on the skin she dedicated herself to restoring and the shattered soul it encased grew pliant and more willing. Silence faded into laughter as a new life emerged from beneath the layers.  

Laughing, I know that her admonishments about sun spots damaging her canvas are proof that we’re living in each moment. Peeling back the layers is no longer painful and I trust her to know how much I can withstand, even if she does get a little too excited about something “that feels like bugs eating your face.”

Watching her hand dance above me I wonder how tight her grip is. Because if that peel takes my nose with it …