Holidaze

This year, we are meeting for brunch for Thanksgiving. I think it's just easier. Plus, as my sister Jackie pointed out recently to me, and which I just kind of realized myself, it's never been the same since my dad died years and years ago.

Dad was always the one who loved Thanksgiving. I never realized until I was in my late thirties, and he was long gone, how much he was the sun we all revolved around on the Thanksgiving holiday. 

I remember with fondness how he would bellow at me to eat.  "Eat some veggie tray Jenny! And I made deviled eggs for you!"

I write a lot about my struggles as a kid and a young adult, but I never was neglected. My dad and mom were always there. My mom sometimes had to work the holidays because the Chinese restaurant she worked at was open, but she always ate with us, choosing to work the night dinner shift so she could spend time with all of us. 

My family was and is a motley crew. From blue collar to white collar, and most all of the women are former waitresses, but are now composed of teachers, a lawyer, medical professionals and all readers along with a few part-time writers both realized and unrealized. I hope that we are also all truth tellers, and memory savers.

This holiday, I hope that we all remember my dad, grandpa to some, who started it all with my mom. Thank god she is still here. I simply don't know what I would do without her.  My mom, aka the Judy my dad was referencing when he sang Hey Jude" to her in a country twang, is my life raft to my family and to the memory of my dad and to many of my remembrances of who I was and a reminder of who I aim to be.