Thanksgiving

Last week, I was laser-focused, working on my novel manuscript at Rockvale Writers Colony. RWC is located in rural Tennessee and provides an idyllic setting. Daily, I glanced up and caught Mother Nature in mid-wardrobe change. It felt intimate, sacred - as if She was performing for my eyes alone.

During the week of my residency, Maple leaves awakened from the lethargic spell of hot, dry days. Shaking off rusty hues, the leaves burst into vibrant reds and golds. A magic trick performed in plain sight; mysterious, autumnal alchemy.

A magic trick performed in plain sight; mysterious, autumnal alchemy.

Now, I am back to real life where my writing must be wedged into stolen moments. Meetings, podcast production, the rapid approach of holidays, family gatherings, and laundry have no patience for creative ‘whimsy.’

It is a season of transitions. Beauty fading as leaves wither and die. Days growing shorter. A time of bountiful harvest, of taking stock of our blessings. Yet, Thanksgiving, for me, is bittersweet. If I could bottle the scent of this season, it would be a subtle one with hints of woodsmoke and melancholy, of joy and loss.

I began the following essay the Thanksgiving following my mother’s death. I was in graduate school. Her death caught me mid-wardrobe change - on the threshold of full adulthood, unawares. I continued the essay the following year, after the loss of my oldest brother, an attempt to perform the alchemy by which unbearable loss transforms into gratitude.

The completed essay was published in An Elegant Dispute of the Accidental, a chapbook of my poetry and prose.

Giving Thanks

Sleep softened and blurred the edges of my grief the Thanksgiving after Mama died. Those first blinking-awake moments - those hurt.

Those first blinking-awake moments - those hurt. With a searing, branding kind of hurt. The kind that sinks into your marrow and knows no forgetting. The kind that becomes as much a part of you as breathing.

It was the silence that made my eyes finally acknowledge her absence - with tears.

I didn’t cry when our neighbor called. Though his voice, distant and hollow echoing down the phone line told me all my heart would ever need to know. More than it could bear.

There would be no more sounds of Mama’s hands - sure and confident - chopping onions, apples, and pecans.

“Just so,” she always told us, my brothers and me. “Like this.”

She’d take the knife, patient and gentle, from my hand and show me how easily things can split in half and then in quarters. Our family is smaller now by a third - Mama and my oldest brother, both gone.

Never again will I rise to the sweet scent of celery melting in butter. That falls to me, now. If there’s to be a feast, it will e the awkward work of my hands.

I’ll leave out ingredients and forget the order of things. My eyes will tear; the knife dull, when I attempt to slice through onions I’ve not yet begun to peel. Their shiny globes still sheathed in mystery.

I can’t even hear my mama’s and brother’s ghosts rattling pans, turning on water in the sink, opening the oven door.

I’m not sad. I’m not sad. I’m not sad. I’m just alone, holding silent heartbreak that knows no forgetting.

I prepare the dressing. I prepare to give thanks.

I want no part of forgetting.