Thanksgiving
Writing seems so daunting sometimes. It's like in my head there's one perfect way to write something, one perfect version I'm supposed to construct or unearth that will most accurately convey the truth of what I want to say. But then what if I write it the wrong way? What if my final product isn't anything like what I want it to be? What if I don't do it right? It's easier to just turn on Netflix and eat some cheese and crackers.
As Thanksgiving drew closer this year I felt more and more uneasy. In the past, I'd always felt giddy about the holidays, even up through college. I loved them. Time with my family. Vacation from school. Cookie-making. Decorating. Helping Grandma wrap presents and set up her creepy live action caroler dolls. Sitting surrounded by all the Black Friday ads, circling things we wanted and marking them with our initials. Waking up in my parents' house at dawn Christmas morning to my brother blasting the 1812 Overture and throwing those popping firecrackers on the floor. We'd sit on the carpet outside our bedroom doors to unpack our stockings, and later Dad would make us donuts and we'd lay around in our pajamas, playing with our gifts. We were all spoiled, but more than the presents it was the feeling that I was safe and taken care of, that all was well, that I loved. That's another way of being spoiled, of being privileged.
The holidays have changed, as is natural and right. Old traditions go away, replaced by new traditions. My brothers have their own families. We all have in-laws. There's an ever-growing herd of young children running around. More people have joined the family. And now more people have left.
This was the first Thanksgiving without Grandma, and I thought I'd gotten through the worst of it. I knew it would be sad, and different, and it was, but it hit me harder than I thought it would. Not during the actual day, though there were moments – Grandpa sitting at the table, looking down at his plate. Helping Mom and Leisa get the food ready and feeling the distinct lack of Grandma coming through the door with bags of supplies. Seeing people in the dining room doing the craft Kendall had brought, and knowing that if Grandma were there she wouldn't have let me get away with not being at the table with them. I just couldn't be around everyone. I just didn't want to talk.
But it wasn't until we started driving home that I got really sad. There was such a sense of things being over – it was never coming back. I'm never going to feel the same way as I did when I was a kid during the holidays. I knew it already, and I'd felt it for years, but I guess losing Grandma gave it another layer of finality. My grandma is never coming back. She's gone. She always took care of me, and she's gone. I'm getting older. We're all getting older.
I remembered sitting on the floor in the family room five years ago, when we'd finished eating Thanksgiving dinner and everyone was making shopping plans for the next day, and digging up the guts to ask Grandma if I could have my wedding at her lake house. I couldn't imagine having it anywhere else. Nowhere else would do, but I tried to play it off as if it were okay if she said no, because I knew it would be stressful for her. Of course she didn't tell me no. She never told me no. I told you, spoiled. How lucky I was to have been able to do that, to have had her at all. To have all of my family.
This year the night of Thanksgiving I lay in bed and couldn't sleep, and I was suddenly back to the pattern I'd fallen into in the weeks after her death. Laying in the dark, wide awake, my brain racing, full of things that I'd miss, things I'd loved, squeezing my eyes tight over quiet tears and trying not to wake up Michael beside me.
I was going to get Grandma pottery for Christmas. Did I buy her something in Belize? There weren't going to be any more spring or fall weekends with Grandma and Grandpa at the lake. Remember just this last spring when she and I bought flowers to plant in our yards? She was fine, then. Happy and strong. We were supposed to pick out curtains for my bedroom. Once a year or so she'd ask me to get reading glasses for Grandpa from the store where I used to work – I wonder if he needs any. He probably won't get them himself. The last time I saw her was at the Johnny Appleseed festival. We were walking around and we stopped to buy some Sweet Annie, because her mother used to buy it every year to make her house smell nice. When Mom and I went with Grandpa to the lake right after she died I saw hers in a vase by the door. I threw mine out because it had bugs in it. I wish I hadn't. I have a voicemail from Grandma on my phone. Sometimes I listen to it just to feel better. "Haley, this is Grandma. I know you're on your way – I have to run an errand but I left the front door open to the house. I should be right back."
On nights like these I always end up in the same place, the same thought running through my brain: "But where is my grandma? Where is my grandma? Where is my grandma?"
Nothing like the death of a loved one to put you in an existential crisis. This is overdramatic, this is self-pitying...this is grief, I suppose.
This wasn't the right way to write this, but it was the right way for today.
As Thanksgiving drew closer this year I felt more and more uneasy. In the past, I'd always felt giddy about the holidays, even up through college. I loved them. Time with my family. Vacation from school. Cookie-making. Decorating. Helping Grandma wrap presents and set up her creepy live action caroler dolls. Sitting surrounded by all the Black Friday ads, circling things we wanted and marking them with our initials. Waking up in my parents' house at dawn Christmas morning to my brother blasting the 1812 Overture and throwing those popping firecrackers on the floor. We'd sit on the carpet outside our bedroom doors to unpack our stockings, and later Dad would make us donuts and we'd lay around in our pajamas, playing with our gifts. We were all spoiled, but more than the presents it was the feeling that I was safe and taken care of, that all was well, that I loved. That's another way of being spoiled, of being privileged.
The holidays have changed, as is natural and right. Old traditions go away, replaced by new traditions. My brothers have their own families. We all have in-laws. There's an ever-growing herd of young children running around. More people have joined the family. And now more people have left.
This was the first Thanksgiving without Grandma, and I thought I'd gotten through the worst of it. I knew it would be sad, and different, and it was, but it hit me harder than I thought it would. Not during the actual day, though there were moments – Grandpa sitting at the table, looking down at his plate. Helping Mom and Leisa get the food ready and feeling the distinct lack of Grandma coming through the door with bags of supplies. Seeing people in the dining room doing the craft Kendall had brought, and knowing that if Grandma were there she wouldn't have let me get away with not being at the table with them. I just couldn't be around everyone. I just didn't want to talk.
But it wasn't until we started driving home that I got really sad. There was such a sense of things being over – it was never coming back. I'm never going to feel the same way as I did when I was a kid during the holidays. I knew it already, and I'd felt it for years, but I guess losing Grandma gave it another layer of finality. My grandma is never coming back. She's gone. She always took care of me, and she's gone. I'm getting older. We're all getting older.
I remembered sitting on the floor in the family room five years ago, when we'd finished eating Thanksgiving dinner and everyone was making shopping plans for the next day, and digging up the guts to ask Grandma if I could have my wedding at her lake house. I couldn't imagine having it anywhere else. Nowhere else would do, but I tried to play it off as if it were okay if she said no, because I knew it would be stressful for her. Of course she didn't tell me no. She never told me no. I told you, spoiled. How lucky I was to have been able to do that, to have had her at all. To have all of my family.
This year the night of Thanksgiving I lay in bed and couldn't sleep, and I was suddenly back to the pattern I'd fallen into in the weeks after her death. Laying in the dark, wide awake, my brain racing, full of things that I'd miss, things I'd loved, squeezing my eyes tight over quiet tears and trying not to wake up Michael beside me.
I was going to get Grandma pottery for Christmas. Did I buy her something in Belize? There weren't going to be any more spring or fall weekends with Grandma and Grandpa at the lake. Remember just this last spring when she and I bought flowers to plant in our yards? She was fine, then. Happy and strong. We were supposed to pick out curtains for my bedroom. Once a year or so she'd ask me to get reading glasses for Grandpa from the store where I used to work – I wonder if he needs any. He probably won't get them himself. The last time I saw her was at the Johnny Appleseed festival. We were walking around and we stopped to buy some Sweet Annie, because her mother used to buy it every year to make her house smell nice. When Mom and I went with Grandpa to the lake right after she died I saw hers in a vase by the door. I threw mine out because it had bugs in it. I wish I hadn't. I have a voicemail from Grandma on my phone. Sometimes I listen to it just to feel better. "Haley, this is Grandma. I know you're on your way – I have to run an errand but I left the front door open to the house. I should be right back."
On nights like these I always end up in the same place, the same thought running through my brain: "But where is my grandma? Where is my grandma? Where is my grandma?"
Nothing like the death of a loved one to put you in an existential crisis. This is overdramatic, this is self-pitying...this is grief, I suppose.
This wasn't the right way to write this, but it was the right way for today.