"Maybe your cousin will offer you a turkey carcass the day after Thanksgiving," my mother quips. It's a reference to an old inside joke. My grandmother pretended to be thankful for the sad remains of a turkey delivered so rudely by one of her many granddaughters years back. "You could make a soup out of it," was the accompanying phrase, though being invited to the feast in the first place would've been preferred. Good old grandma smiled thankfully and waited until her company left to throw the skin and bones into the trash can. It was an instance the three of us would laugh about whenever poultry came up back when there were still three of us.
"One can only hope..." I type from the safety of my cell's keypad in response. It dawns on me that this will be our first holiday without her. It must be breaking my mom's heart, too. Neither of us mention it, but we know. A mother and her only son always know without saying.
I stop what I'm doing at the time, which doesn't amount to much, to think of what I'm thankful for this year: a new brother, an old father, and the beautiful life and gracious death of the woman who taught me the most about love. Suddenly it's not so bad; lonely still, but not so bad. There are people who will need me around a bit longer. There are promises I've made to photographs on shelves.
I go back to painting the mask I'll wear tomorrow when meeting my father's in-laws and hope for, among other things, the paint to dry in time.
Currently reading:
"The Selected Poems of Robert Creeley".
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