Let me say first I LOVE Thanksgiving! It is my favorite holiday of the year. I love to make a big dinner for my family. For us there are traditional “must have” foods: monkey bread in the morning, and for dinner, turkey, homemade stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole with fried onions on top, 7-up salad, homemade bread, cherry cheesecake and homemade pumpkin pie. Without these foods, it just isn’t Thanksgiving.
At least that was the case until two years ago on Thanksgiving. I had fallen the month before at my favorite academic conference. When I fell, I broke both my wrists. The weeks leading up to Thanksgiving were difficult ones in a variety of ways. I was learning how to be helpless. I was accepting with as much grace as possible that someone else had to do absolutely everything for me. I was dealing with incredible pain.
I was also dealing with the fact that my daughter, who had a job in retail, and who was a student at UNLV, a 19 hour drive away, was not going to be able to come home for Thanksgiving. I was trying to cajole, persuade, manipulate my son into accepting my plan that he and I should fly, or drive, to Las Vegas to be with his sister. I was desperate! Our going to Las Vegas was completely unrealistic on a lot of levels, not least of which was my physical incapacity, the exorbitant price of airfare just days before the holiday, and the fact that there was no way I was up to a 19 hour drive. But I just couldn’t handle the idea that we would not all be together for Thanksgiving.
This was a very emotional time during my healing process. The day before Thanksgiving my daughter messaged me and asked me for the recipe for 7-Up salad. As it turned out she was going to be able to have Thanksgiving dinner with some friends in Las Vegas after all. I did not respond well to this request. In fact, it made me cry. I no longer have the text messages that we sent back-and-forth. Stefan typing for me or me voice texting. But I know they went something like this. Me: “Wait! I thought you had to work all day on Thanksgiving! But I want you to come home and be with us! I miss you! :-(” Alyssa: “Mom, I just get to have dinner. I don’t have the whole day off. If I could come home I would. I can’t. You know that. So will you give me the recipe or not?” I gave her the recipe. “Stefan”, I began after Alyssa hung up the phone. “Mommy, we’re not going to Las Vegas”, he replied gently. I burst into tears. It’s hard to cry with both your wrists in splints when someone else has to wipe your tears and hold the Kleenex to help you blow your nose. I felt hopeless.
As it turned out, this was my best Thanksgivings ever!
I was moping around the house on Thanksgiving Eve when Stefan told me he had to run an errand. “Ok”, I replied without much enthusiasm. I don’t think I even offered to ride along. “It will take me a while. I have several stops to make”, he hollered from downstairs. “No problem”, I replied. “Be safe. I love you.” I curled up on my bed in the dark and waited for him to come back. I think I dozed off.
When Stefan got back he hollered up the stairs, “Hey Mom, I’m back. Can you come here a minute. I have something to show you.”. “Ok, I’m on my way”, I replied. As I turned the corner of the staircase I saw my beautiful daughter sitting on the couch. She jumped up, “Surprise”, she hooted. I burst into tears. She ran across the room and wrapped her arms around me. “I didn’t mean to make you cry; this was supposed to be a good surprise”, she said. “It’s a wonderful surprise”, I sniffled. “These are happy tears”. I rested my head on her shoulder as she wrapped her arms around me. Stefan wrapped his arms around both of us and we just stood there, happy to be together.
Alyssa had gotten the whole weekend off, purchased her plane ticket, and collaborated with her brother to surprise me. It was the best surprise I could have imagined.
That weekend, Alyssa took over my care, helping me shower, dress, brush my teeth and hair, manage the bathroom. She fed me with ease. I felt her love, care and compassion. I observed her learning, at her own rate, how to care for me, as I learned how to relax into her rhythm. I was still emotional at times, but incapacitation, pain medication, happiness, and holidays will do that to me.
We ended up having an amazing weekend. It quickly became clear that I had made no plans for Thanksgiving dinner and that I couldn’t cook anything. Alyssa said that was no problem as she and Stefan had decided we were just going to spend the weekend making our favorite foods and hanging out. She said, “You can tell us what to do, Mom, and we’ll do it!” We focused on comfort foods. I stood in the kitchen, or in the dining room looking over the counter, giving instructions. We made macaroni and cheese, 7-up salad, and monkey bread. Everything was delicious.
We snuggled in bed together and watched movies and all the episodes we could find of “Once Upon a Time”, Alyssa’s favorite show. I slept a lot. I would awaken to the sound of Alyssa and Stefan’s laughter or quiet talking. I would either smile and drift back to sleep, or wake to spend time with them. I was still on pretty heavy pain medication most of the time. But I was surrounded by the two people I love most in the world, my children. I thank my daughter for doing all she did to be with me, and her co-conspirator, my son, for giving me the best Thanksgiving ever.
Deborah's Deliberations 