![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.gloriacrist.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/turkey3.jpg\" "\\"turkey3\\"")
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There.\u00a0 It’s done.\u00a0 Another Thanksgiving put to rest.\u00a0 I am grateful.<\/p>\n
Not that I am against holidays.<\/p>\n
Ours was actually good.\u00a0 Quiet.\u00a0 Roaring fire, table set with something new, something old and my daughter ate something other than mac and cheese.\u00a0 I’d call that a success.<\/p>\n
But still.<\/p>\n
No matter what, holidays seem to always set the family dysfunction dial on default.<\/p>\n
Forget the years of therapy.\u00a0 We always go back.<\/p>\n
Our family is based on triangles.\u00a0 I blame it on my mother-who got it from her mother. Is it a southern thing-we southern gals?\u00a0 Triangulate and step back.\u00a0 I have been trying, with some success, to step out of the triangle and be a circle.<\/p>\n
Just be a circle.<\/p>\n
But with the holidays the reset button is adjusted and with one phone call, the triangle is set in motion and before you know it, there we go again in the funk of conversation.<\/p>\n
It goes something like this:<\/p>\n
My father, who long ago divorced mom will call and say:<\/p>\n
“Why hasn’t your brother called me?”\u00a0 “I called him and he has not called me back.”<\/p>\n
“I am sure he is busy dad.”\u00a0 “Happy Thanksgiving”<\/p>\n
“Oh, right.”\u00a0 “Happy Thanksgiving.”<\/p>\n
“Horseshit”, and then he is off on a tangent of things gone wrong in the center of his Universe.”<\/p>\n
Don’t get me wrong, I love my father.\u00a0 It’s been a long and expensive road to wind back to being in the same room with him.\u00a0 But I did it.\u00a0 And still I bob and weave when he says things without thinking. We fixed the triangle-morphed into somewhat of a circle.\u00a0 A bouncing ball of boundaries.\u00a0 It seems to work. Our father daughter dance is no longer full of one of us stepping on the other’s toes.<\/p>\n
Invisible pink protective bubble goes up and I am my own person.\u00a0 Not the 12 year old fighting for her identity.<\/p>\n
“Just relax dad.” I feel so grown up now.\u00a0 My own circle of a woman.<\/p>\n
“He will call you when he has a moment.”\u00a0 ” I am sure.”<\/p>\n
I change the subject.\u00a0 Something about tending to the turkey I have in the oven.<\/p>\n
Then I call my mom, who despite no longer knowing what day it is, what time of\u00a0 year it is, or anything beyond a five minute stretch of time, still knows how to triangulate with the greatest of ease.\u00a0 God bless her.<\/p>\n
“Happy Thanksgiving Mom.”<\/p>\n
I just spent five days with\u00a0her.\u00a0 She is oblivious.<\/p>\n
“Are you and the family coming here for Thanksgiving?”\u00a0 Who is flying in and who needs to be picked up from the airport?’\u00a0 ” When is everyone getting here and where is everyone going to sleep?”<\/p>\n
“Mom”<\/p>\n
There is silence.<\/p>\n
And then she chimes in.\u00a0 “I hope you don’t think I am cooking a turkey?”\u00a0 ” I did not plan on cooking a turkey.”<\/p>\n
There is silence.<\/p>\n
“I make the best pecan pie you know?”<\/p>\n
“Yes, mom, I know.”\u00a0 “Dave is coming in for Thanksgiving….only Dave.”\u00a0 ” There is plenty already cooked for Thanksgiving.”<\/p>\n
There is plenty cooked because I could not bear for her ( or my brother for that matter) to not have the scent of something familiar wavering through the house.\u00a0 On the day of thanks there needed to be the smells of home-only if it was to come from heat and serve.\u00a0 There was a complete mini Thanksgiving meal all prepped and ready to go.\u00a0 All her favorites.\u00a0 Not that she would eat any of it-but it was there.\u00a0 Never mind the pecan pie came baked fresh from Food Lion, there was pecan pie by damn.<\/p>\n
“Oh.”\u00a0 she says.<\/p>\n
“Is he bringing Sam?”\u00a0 She is off the turkey now and onto Sam, my brother’s dog.<\/p>\n
“Yes, mom.”<\/p>\n
“”Well, that’s good….. Sam and I will go for long walks on the beach and Dave can get some rest. He works so hard”<\/p>\n
My mother has not been on the beach for nearly two years now.\u00a0 Her beach.\u00a0 She would walk for hours-and now the stretch of beach was like a danger zone-a place of no return.\u00a0 Never mind the shells not to be discovered-she needed the comfort of something else now.\u00a0 It seemed to be okay for her to sit and look at her beach,\u00a0 her ocean, if only from the front deck.<\/p>\n
And then, with the greatest of ease:<\/p>\n
“Call you brothers and tell them…………”<\/p>\n
And so the triangle begins.<\/p>\n
“I love you mom.”\u00a0 I say.\u00a0 “Enjoy your Thanksgiving with Dave.”<\/p>\n
There is pure joy in her voice.<\/p>\n
“Dave is coming down for Thanksgiving?!”\u00a0 she says.<\/p>\n
“Yes mom, and he is bringing Sam.”<\/p>\n
More joy from her end of the phone.<\/p>\n
“You know, I wish your brother would find someone<\/em>”<\/p>\n And then we are on the same conversation about how wonderful my brother Dave is( and, well, he is) and why he can’t find anyone.\u00a0 She actually, at one point tried to fix him up with one of her aides-early on.\u00a0 Sheila.\u00a0 Or whatever her name was.\u00a0 Turns out she had lots of names and was stealing all of mom’s medicines and slowly moving into mom’s house.\u00a0 I knew something was up when Sheila, crazy Sheila-or whatever her real name was, called me to report on “our mom”.\u00a0 I flew back down to North Carolina a day after that phone call-and the next day crazy Sheila was gone. As well as a month of all of mom’s meds, several pieces of clothing, a 24 pack of toilet paper ( really?)\u00a0 a carton of cigarettes and what else I will\u00a0 never know.<\/p>\n So much for background checks.<\/p>\n It never would have worked out with my brother Dave any way.\u00a0 Crazy Sheila. Or whatever her real name was.<\/p>\n “I gotta go mom.”<\/p>\n We hang up and I call my brother Chris.\u00a0 He does not answer the phone.\u00a0 Either by choice or not, I am not sure.<\/p>\n “Happy Thanksgiving.”\u00a0 I say and continue on before the beep.\u00a0 ” Call Dad and don’t forget to call mom and….then, right there in my seconds or so of salutation, I feel the triangle closing in.<\/p>\n “Happy Thanksgiving.”\u00a0\u00a0 “I love you.”<\/p>\n And I leave it at that.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n *this post is from last year.\u00a0 My mom passed away in July.<\/p>\n