Welcome to Street Prophets Thursday Coffee Hour an open thread cleverly located at the intersection of Religion and Politics. I was a caregiver for my Mom before she passed away. Here is the story of her last Thanksgiving.
Mom had never been heavy but after her heart attack she started losing weight. When we lost Dad in 1999 the weight loss became worse. By the time she had asked me to come stay with her she was very skinny. I love to cook but Mom was never one for spicy foods and I love spices. When we finally got her to retire she seemed to get pleasure out of cooking supper. It was typical midwestern cooking. It was nothing fancy but at least she would eat it. Her portions though were tiny and I know she was skimping on breakfast and lunch while I was at work.
When Dad was alive and we lived in California Mom would always have Thanksgiving at our house. My Dad’s two sisters would always have Easter at their house. Mom would go all out with turkey, oyster dressing, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, regular mashed potatoes with giblet gravy, and pumpkin pie for the majority and mincemeat pie for Dad and I. After they moved to Indiana and Mom started working at the hospital they would have Thanksgiving dinner there. For the first few years that I lived there that was where we ate on Thanksgiving as both my brother and I were also working at the hospital.
The last Thanksgiving that my Mom was to spend here on earth she had decided she wanted to have the dinner at home. She was becoming increasingly weak with the congestive heart failure and wanted to make it as easy as she could. The Saturday before she handed me her grocery shopping list and the ads for the grocery stores. She had circled a fully cooked smoked turkey from Aldi’s and other items that would make a dinner. I got the canned turkey gravy, the canned yams, boxed mashed potatoes, boxed dressing, and ready-made pie.
Thanksgiving day came and Mom was really tired. I told her to go ahead and rest and hold her Pixie and I would do dinner. I love to cook and was at that time working on my first cookbook. After my parents had moved to Indiana I continued to do Thanksgiving and it was always from scratch. This time I went ahead and did the packaged, the canned and the precooked items. When I had everything on the table Mom came and actually filled a regular plate full. It was one of the first times that I had seen her eat a full meal in years. Convenience food had never tasted so good.
We lost Mom in May 2010. I am spending this Thanksgiving at my apartment in North Carolina with my brother Reid and my cat Pixie. I'll be making my turkey dinner in a crockpot. My niece and her husband and children drive up to the mountains to spend Thanksgiving with his mother. It will be a quiet day.
I still remember that last Thanksgiving with Mom. I remember the joy of seeing her eat. I remember her making sure that Pixie would get some turkey. I miss Mom terribly but I am thankful that in her last years of life that I was able to be with her and be her caregiver. There is a lot of stress and pain in being a caregiver. There are also some loving memories that make it all worthwhile. So Happy Thanksgiving to everyone and to all caretakers may your day be as blessed as mine was on that last Thanksgiving with Mom.
