turkey day

truth be told i never liked thanksgiving... i've always thought it was a silly holiday.. we eat.. then we eat some more.. but.. at least we get together with family and i suppose that is what matters... i hadn't spent thanksgiving with my family in quite a while... we would fly out for Christmas or they would come here so it didn't make sense to take two trips a month apart... and that has always been pretty okay with me...

but last year we were blessed to spend one last thanksgiving together.. as a complete family.. last year on this day we were picking up my husband at the airport... i was readying him for what he was going to see..the last time he had seen my dad he looked pretty well.. he was easily tired.. but was walking... and still had a considerable amount of weight on him... what he was going to see is our big strong papa.. in a wheel chair... thin... far from frail.. but needing more help... he was not going to be able to talk with him as he would have in years past... he was going to avoid talking about hunting for fear that it would make papa sad that he was unable to be in his beloved outdoors... also at this point papa wasn't talking a ton.. and the morphine made him less and less lucid..

the day went without incident.. my husband was very optimistic.. until that night when we clung to each other and for the frist time really sobbed.. together... we never lost hope as a family until papa's last day on earth.. but i think that night we both realized that losing him was inevitable... and our new hope was for more time...

what we were given instead of more time.. was a good day... thanksgiving if i remember right was a good day.... there wasn't a ton of pain and papa discovered he could eat mashed potatoes.. which later turned into a couple late night runs to KFC... and i remember him wanting for us to go home... (to my mom's house because we were at my aunts) to have a singing contest... because we were playing rockstar on the wii... we didn't.. but he was well enough to go to my other aunts home for desert... and i believe still feeling entitled to his singing contest... had my aunt play the guitar for him.. he remembered a song he used to sing to my cousin when she was little.. and while i wasn't there for this event.. the story goes that he had her sit in front of him while he sang "i love" by tom t. hall... i mist up every time i hear that story that my cousin bravely told at his funeral.. and it is a bitter sweet blessing that i wasn't there for that... i had worked so hard to be strong for him... to show him i could handle anything.. truth be told.. i could not have handled that...

again..in my papa's way.. he gave us a wonderful thanksgiving to remember... and this thanksgiving... of course we will be thinking of him and missing him... but pssssssst... i'm still stressing about Christmas :)

just a reminder... if you would like to contribute to my blog as a "guest blogger" (and please do, as i am sure there are many wonderful memories that i wasn't present for, or would like to hear from a different point of view).. if you would like to write about my papa, cancer or loss... please email an entry, photo or memory to amberumen@yahoo.com