Thanksgiving is the time of year we taste our grief.
Literally. I mean, no one makes homemade cornbread dressing like Mom. But … she isn’t here anymore to make it. It cannot be the same …
So, like any perfectly sentimental daughter, I always make dressing, aka, stuffing, in just the way Mom made dressing. I use her recipe. But there is still that missing ingredient. Mom.
But the holiday need not be completely ruined. Because Thanksgiving is also the time of year that we taste the love.
I sorted through a lot of keepsakes and belongings as I cleaned out my parents’ home after their deaths, but their recipes do not evoke sadness as their other possessions did.
I do not cry when I make the dishes using their handed-down cookbooks. I smile. It’s as if despite the distance between us, I can pull my mother closer.
A box of index cards, smudged with food particles, make me smile, too. These were Mom’s special recipes, the things she made us over and over again.
Food is life. And there is pleasure in eating good food. Pleasure.
There’s also pleasure in eating the foods of your youth. And there’s wisdom in laboring over the same five or six dishes that your parent or grandparent labored over at Thanksgiving. You get a renewed appreciation for the labor of love they demonstrated.
That all equates to a Thanksgiving rescue for our Thanksgiving grief.
Oh, our grief does not evaporate, nor should it be ignored. Maybe this year, the sense of loss will eclipse the sense of love. Your loss is still too fresh.
My pivot from the intensity of grief and toward the bits of healing took years. I will never be immune from the sense of something … um, someone … is missing from the dinner table.
I will snuggle in the love as often as I feel it, however. I will savor it and taste it and allow it to give me pleasure. I will allow it to offer life.
What is your favorite recipe keepsake? Is there a specific memory it evokes?
Copyright © 2020 by Toni Lepeska. All rights reserved. www.tonilepeska.com
Not only Thanksgiving, but a lot of different meals and smells make me grieve, but it is always followed immediately by wonderful thought of that person.
I’m glad to hear it, Geri! 😊