Thanksgiving

November 28, 2008  12:11 am

 

For everyone else, Thanksgiving is over.  For me, it has just begun.  You see, Thanksgiving is the fourth Friday in November… sort of like Christmas is really December 26.  I remember when I did it, moving Thanksgiving and Christmas.  The boys were 3.  Their “father” and I were supposed to alternate holidays.  That really seemed unfair to my children, knowing that when they got older they would feel bad no matter which house they were at, because they missed their missing parent.

 

So, even though it hurt, not having my children on those special family days, I moved them.  I didn’t want them to have to pick where to be.  Ever.  There were a couple of times that I broke my own rule, and took them to my big brother’s for the holiday.  They loved their Uncle Alan and Aunt Vicky so much.  And Leslie.  Good grief, from the day that child was born, they adored her.  I can still hear them.  “We’re your big brothers, you know.”  So, for me, Thanksgiving has just begun.

 

It is so hard to believe that it has been 10 years since I shared Thanksgiving with both of my children.  1998 was the last time we were all together on that fourth Friday.  In 1999, my J was in jail, and Rick wasn’t speaking to me.  I had refused to bail him out of jail in October.  He didn’t speak to me for three months.  I thought that would be the most painful day of my life.  I said it then, and I said it Christmas.  Jason was home, but Rick still wasn’t speaking to me.  I wish I’d been right.  I wish those had been my most painful holidays.

 

Maybe it’s because it is that two digit number, one of those “significants”, the reason that my soul feels torn from my body.  The pain is raw and rough and ragged.  It feels brand new.  I want to run away and hide, but I can’t.  Thursday, I made dressing.  And sweet potato soufflé (we don’t do casseroles at my home.  My sons think it is an evil word).  And “mashpers”.  I caught myself before I peeled the entire bag of potatoes.  Didn’t matter if I made 5 pounds or 10, there were never any left,   I made way too much dressing.  I don’t know how to make it in a smaller portion.  There was never any left.  I told them I didn’t know how to make more.  They told me I’d have to learn when their kids were born, because I never made enough.  And peas,  But the only way you eat peas is in the crater you made in your mashpers so you can’t taste the peas.  I didn’t make their corn, or their fruit salad, or their sour cream pound cake, or a Brenda pie.  I didn’t do celery and carrots to munch on.  I didn’t make the rice (I used to tease them.  “Would you like some starch to go with your starch…. oh, and your other starch?”).  I did buy cranberry sauce.  We had a one bite rule.  If I made it, they had to have one bite of it.  Only I told them that the rule didn’t apply to me, because I do NOT like cranberry sauce.  That would always start one of those, “when MY kids are born….” conversations.  I miss those conversations.

 

Thursday was a piece of cake.  I went to work, smiled and was bouncy happy cheerful silly Princess Sassy that everyone expects to see.  Now?  The tears are right behind my eyes, but I still don’t know how to let them fall.  We had a tradition.  We ALWAYS went shopping after we ate our Thanksgiving dinner.  Today, instead of having a nice dinner and facing the mob, I’m going to Dothan.  I have two huge cement running shoes in my Angel Garden.  I’m going to take them and put them on their graves, with bright perennial flowers, and hens and chickens, and maybe a fern.  I’m going to take a really nice bottle of wine from Steven’s cellar (thank you, Steven!) and drink it.  And I’ll get Penrose sausage, and Pure Peppermint Sticks.  And leave them there.  Plus a bag of M&M’s.  M&M’s were J’s thing.  After J died, Rick told me that every time they parted, Jason gave him a bag of M&M’s, and told him to eat one when he missed him.  Only they called them niminums.  Maybe I need to eat some niminums.  But I don’t think it will help.

 

It is my fervent prayer, one that I send out to the Universe daily, that no one ever understand what I feel.  Please, think I’m crazy.  Tell me to move on.  Tell me to get over it.  Because you saying those words means you have no CLUE how I feel.  And that is a very good thing.

 

I’m going to quote Dolly here.  Don’t be concerned for me, because, “I’ll be fine and dandy.  Lord it’s like a hard candy Christmas.  I’m barely gettin’ through tomorrow, but still I won’t let sorrow bring me way down”.  I will be the words they called me, the ones tattooed on my shoulder.  “Beauty Strength Courage Wisdom Grace”. 

 

Thank you, Mr. God, for letting me know them.  Thank You for the way too short time I had with them.  They’re the best thing I ever did.

 

Bren, Forever Jason & Rick’s Little Mother

 

 

Maximum respect,
 
Brenda Adkins, always Red’s & Red Man’s Mom

24 Inches

24 inches.  Give or take an inch or three.  Not so much, I know.  Such a small amount, to mean so much.

 

Rick was 18 1/4 inches long.  Jason was 18 3/4, and always stayed that half an inch taller, no matter how much his brother argued to the contrary.  Not-quite-19 inches is really tiny.  Really, really tiny.

 

“Okay, Princess has lost her mind (yet again)” is likely going through your brain.  But have patience with me, please.  I’ve not been able to write for a while now, and the words are coming slowly.  It’s been the oddest thing.  I usually just sit down, and out comes the drivel.  It (and I) have been silent lately.  That’s why.  I sit down, but nothing happens.

 

I remember my first haircut, when I was 16.  I still have that mass of red somewhere, likely in a box in the attic with lots of other childish things that I find it impossible to part with.  That’s another odd thing.  My hair is the color it was when I first cut it, oh so many years ago.  Yes, over the past years I’ve helped the red out, but what is in this picture is all my natural color.  Almost as if I have come in a circle.  Not the way I’d planned to complete this circle.  Nowhere near.  Yet still a circle. 

 

I was pregnant with my boys when I cut my mop, you see.  I had never had a haircut.  So Ann (yes, I remember) put it in a pony tail and cut it, giving me the tail…. not as gently or as reverently as Hollie did, but giving it to me nonetheless.

 

There’s another oddity.  Jason loved a girl named Hollie.  He loved her til the day he died.  HER Mom, also named Brenda, had “old woman hair”, hair like I was never supposed to have.  I still don’t have “old woman hair”.  I refuse.  Hollie knew exactly how to cut my hair, with not much input from me.  (Her–How do you picture your hair?  Me–Cut.)

 

Jason and I had a deal.  We always kept our deals.  I actually WORE that damned Auburn tee shirt he gave me for Christmas one year.  We keep our word.  Might not like it, but we keep it.

 

Our deal was simple.  I was going to cut my hair when he graduated from Medical school.  At one not so long ago point my hair was hitting my knees.   Every now and again, I’d “chop” it.  Wash it, twist it in a knot, and whack off some.   But I couldn’t actually CUT it.  That would be admitting that he isn’t going to graduate Med school.

 

At some point, I have to get on with my life.  I think I’ve been doing okay so far, this getting on thing.  I pray that no one reading this ever finds out whether I’ve done a good job or not.  I don’t want you to know what I feel on a continual basis.  I simply do.  not.  want.  you.  to.  know.

 

Sunday, October 19, I cut my hair.  It was a very big step for me.  It’s a lot like when I learned to walk the first time.  Sometimes, learning to walk is very hard work.

 

Jason isn’t going to graduate from Med school.  BUT  his death is going to continue to save lives.  Just like he’d planned.  I’ll see to it.  With short, but not “old woman” hair.

 

Walk good and be blessed.  Remember that Angel wings surround you.

 

Forever.

 

 

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