Thanksgiving Monday 2014

This week is Thanksgiving week here in the U.S., one of my favorite holidays.  I like it because I like to eat, and Thanksgiving is all about food (stuffing! potatoes! pie!), but also because it is a cozy holiday, when staying home and just relaxing is an OK thing to do.  Since The Tim works the day before and the day after, we stay put and enjoy the day with Dug and the kitties.  I love it because there is no particular "schedule," and The Tim gets to enjoy a quiet day before the onslaught of holiday schedules and such at work.

Today, though, is always a day that makes me stop and think.  The date is a "before and after" date for me, and the fact that it is also the Monday of Thanksgiving week makes it more so.  Because at approximately 10:30 p.m., on this day of the week, on this date, in the year 1969, my father died.  He had liver cancer, and had more or less been in a coma for several days.  He would never ever get well, and to be honest, I was praying that he would die so that he could stop suffering.  My mother had already taken me to see him a few weeks before so that I could say goodbye, and for so many reasons, it was awful.

And even though I knew he was dying, and even wanted him to be relieved of his suffering, it was still a surprise when he actually did die.  It was the first time in my life that someone I knew intimately, and loved dearly, would die.  It was terribly sad, and there are few days that go by, even 45 years later, when I don't think of him.

Ten years ago, on another Thanksgiving Monday, dated November 24, my doctor had sent me to have tests prior to having a biopsy to examine a "suspicious" finding on my most recent mammogram.  As soon as the nurse told me that was the date for my tests, I knew that it would be likely that I would have cancer.  Not that I am a fatalist, but I just felt that since it was all happening on that day, I would know the answer before anything else had occurred.  I wasn't wrong.  Unlike my father though - and years later, my mother - I was living in a time and place where cancer was no longer something to be ashamed of, and where there were doctors who studied nothing else.  I was, and am, lucky.

When people learn that my father died when I was so young, they always feel sorry for me.  Which I do understand, though it is not necessary.  I have incredibly clear, wonderful, happy memories of him and of time we got to spend together.  I have his enthusiasm (some would say that is a mild term to use) for the holidays, and though I always wish we could have spent more of them together, he is always closest to me during this time of year.

Most importantly, I learned at a young age that no one lives forever.  That it is possible to continue to live when others die.  That you should appreciate people while they are still with you, even if they drive you crazy, or you disagree, or you assume they will always be around because they are not sick.  That you should enjoy things as much as you can, because your happiness is as much your responsibility as it is what is going on around you.  That even terrible things that happen are worth being thankful for, since feelings mean you are stilll around to care.

So here I am on this bittersweet day, being happy that it's Thanksgiving week, and getting ready to make stuffing the way my father did.  Missing him, but knowing that he is right here, just like he has been my entire life.

~My dad as a young man, in his backyard~

Have a wonderful week and a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Roses in December Redux

Last week one day, I was reading one of my usual blogs Sprite Writes, and she mentioned being a part of this year's Virtual Advent Tour.  I was intrigued, and followed her link (as I hope you will follow mine), and decided it just sounded like so much fun, I wanted to join!  I was given today's date, and have been thinking about what I wanted to write when it was my turn.

Here is what the basic idea is, according to the website:

"Each day anyone who wants to participate takes turns sharing a treat with our friends here in blogland. For example it could be something about your family traditions, recipes, your country's holiday traditions, or a favourite Christmas memory, movie, book, song...anything you like. Even if you don't celebrate Christmas we would like to hear about what your family does during the holiday season, whether it be celebrating Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or whatever it is that you do during this time."

I had several ideas, and when it came down to choosing something, I decided to re-post this piece from 2009.  It is one of my favorite Christmas memories, and one of  my very favorite Christmastime posts.   The thing I just noticed is that it is dated exactly four years ago today - which makes me think it is definitely the right choice!

For those of you who will remember reading it, you may just want to wait a few days for a newer post, but if you haven't seen it before, I hope you will enjoy it.

**************************************

10 December 2009

Roses in December

God gave us memories that we might have roses in December. 

~J.M. Barrie, Courage, 1922

  

It happens to me every year in December, but it's not something I can predict, or make happen when I want to.  It just happens when it's ready to happen, and to be honest, it's a bittersweet experience. 

  

You may have noticed that I am quite the fan of holidays, and Christmastime in particular.  I get this honestly, in particular from my father.  He grew up during the Great Depression, in a family who lost their father as youngsters (my father, the oldest, was only 13), and where the kids (4 of them) were split up among relatives afterwards.  In spite of hardship - or perhaps because of hardship - holidays were extremely important to him.  

  

Of course, this was just fine with my sisters and I.  My father loved to cook and bake, but was not home a lot due to his work, so the "big" holidays - Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter - meant he would not just be around, but be the one cooking.  In spite of the fact that this entailed him using every single pot and pan, and every single dish for his preparations (which we then had to wash  and dry later), this was something we looked forward to and counted on.  Though my mother loved to eat, she was not too crazy about cooking.  And needless to say, we never starved, but we couldn't wait for Dad to be home and be the cook! 

  

I will admit to being a Daddy's girl.  I was the youngest (by quite a few years), and so was nearly always home when my Dad was still around.  Thinking back, I realize that I probably drove him nuts hanging around with comments, questions, etc., but to his credit, he never treated me like he wished I was out of the way, even for a while (or, if he did, it was never obvious to me).  I loved to "help" him cook, watch baseball and/or football, clean - whatever he was up to, I liked to be right there. 

  

My father died of liver cancer when I was 13 years old, at a time when a diagnosis of liver cancer literally meant no hope of any amount of survival time.  This past November 24 was the 40th anniversary of his death, which occurred on the Monday of Thanksgiving week that year.  I could write volumes about this, but this post is not meant to make you (or me) sad, but rather to share something with you that happens every year at Christmastime. 

  

As I said earlier, I cannot wish this experience, or predict it.  But it happens, and even though I more or less expect it, I am always thrown by it.  

  

I can be reading, doing dishes, decorating the Christmas tree, or at work, and all of a sudden it happens.  I am walking in the door from school in the second grade, and my father, who is home recuperating from one of his many cancer surgeries, is there - in the middle of the afternoon.  He is putting up Christmas decorations, more specifically, hanging our Christmas stockings for Santa to fill.  The most amazing thing?  They are new stockings that he went out and bought that day.  And mine is green with Santa coming down the chimney!  Do you realize what that means??  GREEN.  Not red, like my sisters' and everyone elses' stockings.  And not just with Santa onit, but Santa coming down the chimney!  As far as I know, nobody else in the world has such a stocking, but my father found one, and knew it was the right one for me!  I remember the feeling of special-ness, of knowing that Santa cared about who I was that that particular stocking represented.  

  

Of course, now I realize that my father probably bought a green stocking with Santa on it because he wanted us to each have a different stocking and the remaining red ones were the ones he had already chosen for my sisters.  But at that moment in time, it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life.  And every year, out of the blue, I am unexpectedly transported to that very moment, surprised, pleased, and thinking my dad is the best because he knew I needed that stocking. 

  

When the moment is gone, I'll admit to being sad, at least for a minute or two.  But it's always the point when I know that Christmas has officially arrived, and that my dad is never that far away. 

  

Roses in December, indeed.

****************************************

Two Things for Today

First of all:

Happy Bloomsday!

"A man's errors are his portals of discovery"

-- James Joyce

Photo taken in Dublin, Ireland in November 2012.

Also:

Happy Father's  Day!

My dad

"It doesn't matter who my father was;

It matters who I remember he was"

-- Anne Sexton

Old Photo Friday

I love this picture, though it is also bittersweet.  This is my parents, and my two sisters - Mary Ellen on the left, and Nancy on the right.  I am not certain how old they are here, and the picture isn't marked.  But this is the only family picture that exists, and it was taken years before I was born.  I can remember after my father died, that my mother used to say she wished we'd had a family picture taken of all of us.

But the other thing about this picture is that it is four people who look truly happy, and who have so much to look forward to in their lives.  When the future was still full of hope and good things, and before there were any illnesses or tough times.

So, although it makes me a little bit sad that I'm not in this picture, it is still one of my favorites.  Seeing them all so happy and healthy makes me happy, and reminds me of how lucky it was that of all the families out there, I got this one.

Have a good last weekend of September.  Maybe take a family picture ...

Old Photo Friday

My dad as a baby

On the back of this picture, someone has written "Harry, 4 months old," which means it is from December 1916.  When I was a little girl and came across this photo, I could not believe that My Dad was WEARING A DRESS!  But my mother would point out every time she saw this, that it looked just like my dad, and it to be honest, it was a classic Dad pose - this is how he would sit when leaning against a bar ...

Have a good Labor Day weekend, and should you find yourself leaning against a bar, have one for my dad!

Three Birthdays

Today marks three special birthdays.

Ninety-six years ago today, my dad was born. He was the oldest of four kids, who got split up to live with grandparents when his father was killed by a train.  My dad was 13 years old.  He and his sister Mary went to live with one set of grandparents, while another sister, Helen, and his baby brother John went to love with another set.

My parents got married the day after Christmas in 1941, when he had just joined the Army after Pearl Harbor.  They moved from base to base for a while, where - as my dad used to say - he "flew a desk."  I've posted pictures of him in his Army uniform here, and I can imagine that he liked the discipline and organization that Army life provided, even if it could be restrictive in other ways.  After he was out of the Army and he and my mom had a family, he always worked in the trucking industry.  He died when I was thirteen years old, from liver cancer, at a time when there were few real treatments for that disease, and it was more or less always a death sentence.  So I have lived most of my life without him, but I think of him every single day, and feel like I was lucky, not just because I knew him for 13 years, but because I knew from a young age that he wouldn't be around forever, and appreciated the time he was here.

The Tim's father was born on this day seventy-nine years ago.  He was a Navy man, having piloted fighter jets in World War II in the Pacific.  After the war, he and my mother-in-law started living their life together, having five children by the time they were finished.  He worked for years in the steel mills, and had barely retired when he was diagnosed with skin cancer.  He died in 1989.  Of course, my knowledge of him was only as an adult, but from all accounts, he had always been the same - kind, quiet, funny, and a calming influence overall.  He loved nothing more than a corny joke or a pun, and since I was a new audience, pulled out all of his old routines to try on me.  I also love corny jokes and puns, so we got along really well!  I think of him often, and miss him most when we are watching a funny TV show or movie, or someone comes up with a truly groan-worthy pun.  I wish he was still around to make us all laugh.

And, finally, about 18 years ago today, our crazy calico Tess was born.  "About" since she was a stray that we found, and to be honest, we "assigned" her August 21st as her birthday.  I knew my dad would be honored, and The Tim's dad would be amused and pleased if nothing else.  We always had at least a cat as a pet growing up, but Tess was truly one of a kind.  We suspected that her previous owners had abused her, because she was quick to react inappropriately, and her front teeth were sheared across her upper jaw.  She could be terribly mean to us and to the other kitties, but over time she settled down, and was actually truly sweet.  We used to joke that she ran a jihad and was planning to a) take over the world, and b) have us killed.  She just had the most unique personality of any cat ever.  She died after a bout with cancer, and just as in life, did not go gently into that good night.  I think of her so much, and miss seeing her, petting her, hugging her, and seeing what new thing would annoy her on any given day!

As a result, August 21 is always a little bittersweet at our house.  But then August 22 comes along, with two wedding anniversaries, and another one on August 25.  So today is followed by happy occasions, which means that we can't take too much time to dwell on any sadness.  Sometimes I think the universe works it out that way on purpose.

Just so you know, there's a space that only you can fill.

Just so you know, I loved you then -

I guess I always will.

Old Photo Friday

My dad.  The back of this photo says, "Harry.  Wheeling, 4-5-1942."  Which means he is just a few months short of his 26th birthday.  By the time I knew my dad, he didn't look like this at all, so these pictures are always a little bit strange to me.  But it's fun to see him as a young man in the sunshine, and that makes me happy to think about on a Friday in May.  

May your weekend be full of things that make you happy.

Old Photo Friday

The other day I realized that a couple of years ago, I had scanned a lot of old family pictures for one of my nieces for a family slideshow she was preparing.  I love old photographs, particularly when I know someone in them, or some story about them.  So I decided to share some with all of you. (Aren't you lucky?)

The person on the right in this picture (the villain?) is my father.  He loved singing and any chance to be dramatic, being a true ham at heart.  This is everything I know about this one, but I'm sure this "production" was stellar ...

Have a good weekend!