I have been dreading the day since around your Birthday last month. I could get through that day just fine because I didn’t usually see you, nor had there been a tradition of gathering the family together to visit you that day until recently. But I knew Thanksgiving would be a different story. I knew that there would be a point when I would recognize your absence. That moment when you presence would be missed. When my heart would break because something from that day would be missing.
I didn’t want Thanksgiving this year, but movies and pizza with the kids in order to avoid trying to do things in your perfect fashion, messing it up, and triggering the loss felt by everyone that came in contact with you. I didn’t want the kids to miss you on Thanksgiving. I didn’t want to miss you either. We miss you everyday, but for one day I didn’t want to miss you. I wanted to feel you with us.
We had a traditional Thanksgiving dinner against my wishes, but I understood why everyone else needed this. To honor you. To honor the unconditional love and sense of family that you taught us. To honor the pride you took in preparing a feast for those you loved. To honor you by breaking bread with each other as you watch from your new home in Heaven with all the ones we love that went before you. We had to have a traditional Thanksgiving, no matter how hard it was, no matter how different it would be, to honor everything you were to us.
For some of us, the tradition of it all is too much and we don’t want the feast without the hands we adored to prepare it. For some of us, we want to carry that forward into the future so that your legacy will live on through our children and theirs. I fall in the middle.
Making things the same as they had been is hard because we will all fall short. There is no way to live up to the works you’ve left behind. So somethings, I won’t even try. However, there are parts of you and things you’ve done that I must master. You will live here forever because of the lives you touched and your service to the Lord. I will master the best parts of you.
The moment I missed you most, was when they ran down the menu for dinner. Mashed Potatoes. We had mashed potatoes, and I asked,”Who made them?”. Mom and Sister were quiet at first, and Mom chuckled and said,”Your Granny is not here to make them anymore so you either do them yourself or shut up and eat what’s here.” I’ve eaten mashed potatoes a few times since you left us, but that day, I wanted yours. I could smile because I can remember all the times you made them just for me. Because you knew I wanted them. Because you wanted me to have food that I liked whenever I was with you. I lived for your mashed potatoes and no one else can make them like you. I missed you that day because mashed potatoes will never be the same without you.
I dreaded Thanksgiving this year without you, but I made it through and I ate the sub-par potatoes that we had, but next year, I will make them and they will be a close rival to yours because everyone deserves My Granny’s Mashed Potatoes, not the knock-offs of the world.
I survived the first Thanksgiving without you, and I know I will survive all of those remaining, but NO ONE deserves Thanksgiving without your mashed potatoes again.
I love you and I miss you Granny. We are doing fine, just forever changed because of your life and adjusting without your presence.
