By Lisa 
I am out of the house this morning, giving Mark (aka Julia Childs in drag) space to cook his off-the-charts fattening but oh-so-good food to take to my brother’s house for Thanksgiving.
Mark has a dish sketched on our kitchen calendar each day, and today’s menu is sausage cheese muffins and a pineapple 7-up cake.
He doesn’t make diet food.
I used to like to cook, but since he loves it, I am happy to back away from the apron. I willingly put myself in the category of bringing ice and napkins to gatherings, but I will swing by the Chick-fil-A drive-thru if I’m feeling fancy.
My ladies’ small group meets a couple of times a month, and we all bring breakfast dishes. I am slightly (a lot) intimidated by their homemade casseroles in pretty bowls, so they, too, get the red and white CFA bag. I figure it’s ok because the Lord’s chicken nuggets don’t have calories.
My sister-in-law Kay and I liked to watch Food Network together. We would talk on the phone and watch Rachel Ray. The problem was, back then, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, there were “long-distance” charges for folks who didn’t live in the same towns, and we racked up several hundred dollars each month.
My brother was very, very happy when I moved back to our hometown.
Kay and I would hang out with Mama, and watch Food Network while drinking too many glasses of Woodbridge Chardonnay and eating brie and crackers. Occasionally we cooked, and depending on the amount of wine consumed, the food was either really good or really bad. The oven temperature must have been slightly off. It happens.
A few days before Thanksgiving, Mama would get out the big yellow bowl she and Pop had gotten as a wedding present. She would start chopping onions and celery and immediately cut her hand.
It wasn’t Thanksgiving week if she didn’t have a blood-soaked bandage on her hand held high above her head while she was opening cabinets, trying to find the poultry seasoning. My contribution was to finish the chopping while the Macy’s Christmas Parade was on in the background.
Mama sauteed the onions and celery and added them to the big yellow bowl with some stale bread cubes.
It wasn’t Thanksgiving without her dressing. The magic of the yellow bowl.
On Wednesday’s calendar this week, Mark wrote down “dressing”. His dressing tastes just like Mama’s.
I saw a golfing buddy of Mama’s today while I was out shopping. She gave me some pictures of Mama and some of her golfing buddies from one of their trips. Mama was laughing in every picture.
Mama told me that on one golf trip, a police officer showed up at their hotel because a guest complained about a very loud party. The culprits? The Riverside Seniors Lady Golf Association.
I hope that police officer got out of there ok.
I often wished I had the coordination and patience for golf. Not for the golf score but for the trips.
Mama’s friend told me 17 people are coming to her house for Thanksgiving. She also said she had to go home after shopping and drag out some card tables from under the bed to give some extra seats.
I am the ice and paper towel person. And I am pretty sure Chick-fil-A isn’t open on Thanksgiving. I told her if it were me, I would fling the table out for them to find, but hide under the bed. With a bottle of chardonnay.
The biggest mistake we make in life is thinking we have more time.
When my Poppy died, I stayed with my little Mama for about three weeks. He died on December 17th, so I stayed through the holidays. We weren’t emotional around each other, but sometimes we needed breaks to just…mourn. I would look at Mama and she would look at me and I would tell her I needed to go to my house for a few hours. We both needed to ugly cry. And that is OK, and necessary.
Before Poppy died, I knew he was very sick. The doctor didn’t tell them other than to give a diagnosis without any additional information. I looked it up, and basically, he had a few months.
I called his doctor on the day Poppy passed and thanked him because I knew that Pop would never have enjoyed the last months of his life otherwise. That was such kindness the doctor gave us.
We went to the beach one more time. Pop couldn’t leave the condo except for one dinner out, but he watched the Little League World Series with a view of the pool and the beautiful Gulf sunsets.
When my little Mama passed, she had been sick with dementia for a while. She talked a lot in the last few weeks about Pop and would cry that he had “let go of her hand.” That last day, he returned, grabbed her hand, and took her with him. Her death was a blessing for her.
I came home from her funeral and sat in the carport, in one of the chairs she and I used to sit in. I was so alone.
Holidays were always going to be different. I was the third wheel. Always.
I realized there would be no more Thanksgiving dressing made in a big yellow bowl. No chardonnay and brie, or Rachel Ray, or bandaged hands. No Kay. No Mama.
Whoever is around your table this year, please look beyond politics, weird tattoos, odd hairstyles, and dry turkey. Take a deep breath and be thankful for the moment of just being…family and friends. Give grace. To you too.
Time is so precious. And you never know how much time you or anyone you see around that table has left.
There is always hope and although it may be different than what you imagined, it can be even better than anything you imagined.
And if you, like me, thought there was no hope for anything to be better.
But…God.
Wednesday, Mark is making our Thanksgiving dressing in my little Mama’s big yellow bowl.
May God bless you and your friends and family this Thanksgiving.
(He has not forgotten you…ever)