[Note: Salon.com recently started a new section called "Open Salon" that allows anyone to contribute. I wrote a piece in response to their open call for a true Thanksgiving story. It didn't make the front page on Thanksgiving, so I thought it sort of sank beneath the waves. But then, it was on their front page today -- Saturday. Here's the link. And below is the story.]
The last time I saw my mother, it was Thanksgiving.
My mother was weird about food. She was Pennsylvania Dutch and her parents suffered through the Great Depression, so she was extremely tight with a buck. She never threw food out until it had hair long enough to wind into rollers. She sometimes did things with food that I was sure would kill us, but somehow never did.
There were usually five of us for Thanksgiving. There was Mother. My sister and her son. Me and my son. (Yes, three single mothers, veterans of many divorces.) And various friends, boyfriends, etc. would come for Thanksgiving, too. But they changed. The core was always the five of us.
That Thanksgiving, I had a brand new job in Norfolk, Virginia. Mother lived in Atlantic City, New Jersey. She and my nephew decided to drive down to Norfolk on Thanksgiving morning; Mother would bring the turkey. (Mother always made the turkey. She insisted on making the turkey.) So that's what they did. She got up before dawn, half-baked a turkey, covered it with tin foil, and she and my nephew got in the car and drove to Norfolk.
See, I hadn't been in Norfolk long, and I thought it was about a four hour trip from Atlantic City. And they believed me. Wrong. It was seven hours. As the day stretched on, my nephew kept calling from his cell phone and giving us status reports. They had finally hit the Eastern Shore. They were approaching the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. He reported that the turkey, riding in its pan in the back seat, was looking more and more deadly as the trip wore on. As they rode over the bridge, he called and told me Mother said to turn on my oven.
They did finally arrive, and there was much hugging. I offered to give the turkey a decent burial and make chicken, but Mother would have none of it and she prepped and popped the half-cooked turkey into the oven. We spent the next few hours reminiscing, catching up, and making side dishes, joking nervously about salmonella.
We didn't get salmonella. We had one of the best Thanksgivings we ever had, and the turkey was delicious, although I'll admit it tasted ever so slightly odd. It had been five years since we had had Thanksgiving together, since my sister had killed herself. After her death, I had moved myself and my son to Texas so I could get a master's degree. I was deeply depressed the entire time I was in grad school. I hated it. I hated Texas. (I'll admit that wasn't Texas' fault.) But I was determined to get that damned degree so that I could get a better job and make more money and we could have a better life. Even though I wasn't sure that I wanted a better life without my sister. When someone so close to you dies, you start feeling that there's no point to life. We're all going to die anyway, and much too soon, so what's the point.
But the four of us were finally together again for that Thanksgiving, and it felt so good. I think we felt a little fragile from the burden of grief we'd been carrying for so long. I think we also felt, without saying so, that enough time had passed without her and we could finally enjoy a holiday again. We walked on the beach. We went to the aquarium. We talked a lot, and laughed a lot, and had a lovely couple of days. The half-cooked multi-state turkey became a standing joke. And then Mother and my nephew went home.
Fast forward to a few months later. I was pulling into the driveway, just coming home from work. My son ran out of the house with the phone in his hand, telling me I had a call from Atlantic City Medical Center. It was an emergency room doctor. My mother had had a massive heart attack. She had already been unconscious and unresponsive when the ambulance came. They were trying to keep her alive, but it didn't look good. If she survived, it was likely she would have to be kept alive by machines. Would I authorize heroic measures, he asked me.
I knew she would hate that. She was over sixty. She had lost one of her two children. She had nursed both of her parents through long, debilitating illnesses. I knew she wasn't afraid of death, but she was terribly afraid of being kept alive by machines. I couldn't even think, but I knew what she would want.
"Let her go," I said. It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to say. We'd had to say it about my sister, too. As soon as I said it, I wanted to take it back.
"We'll get back to you," the doctor said, and hung up. Ten minutes later, he called and told me she was gone. I lost my mother in ten minutes.
Mother wasn't that old. She should have lived a lot longer. I'm certain a lifetime of smoking had something to do with it.
But anyway.
The point of my little story is that we had that last Thanksgiving together. It was last time I saw her, and it was a wonderful holiday. Every Thanksgiving, I think about that lovely weekend with the turkey that didn't kill us. I think about my mother. And it makes me smile.
