Thanks in absentia

Last year at this
time, I wrote about my family, about the meal we were planning for
Thanksgiving, and, especially, about my mother. Here is some of what I said:

            “My brother, Nat, says that food is
our family’s religion. Although my mother is deeply spiritual, organized
religion was absent from my childhood. Still, both my parents grew up in a
deeply religious South, and the values of their upbringings certainly hung in
the air. My father, an eagle scout who once considered the ministry, was stern
about manners and wouldn’t abide swearing; mother spent hours singing old
Methodist hymns at our ‘pianer.’

            Our church was the dining room. My
parents’ eleventh commandment was, ‘thou shalt not be late for dinner,’ and we
ate at precisely 5:30 every night (being late was grounds for dismissal). I
never considered rebelling.

            My mother, Patricia Florence Wilcox,
was our high priestess, a magical cook. Her skill and touch are rooted on the
farm, in lessons from her stepmother Bonnie, a classic Southern country cook.
In school in Atlanta, though, mom’s horizons expanded, and she became as
adventurous as she was adroit. At our dinner table, the ritual required three
rounds of compliments, with mother urging us on between each. I meant every
word.

            One night, it was leg of lamb; the
next, lamb curry; and the third, Scotch broth. There were Southern nights with
the world’s best fried chicken, real milk gravy and biscuits, and always greens
(everyone fought over the pot liquor). Mom’s spaghetti and meatballs recipe
came from the old Italian women in Endicott. The wife of one of my father’s
students taught her Korean. And a trip to Jamaica led to escovich fish. Not surprisingly,
Thanksgiving was our high holy day. It was more or less traditional, with roast
turkey (unstuffed), corn-bread dressing, and a panoply of vegetables. If we
gave thanks to no God, we most certainly did give thanks: to mom, to the
produce, to the farms.”

            I’m thankful she had the chance to
read that, because my mom died, unexpectedly, on May 29. Losing a parent makes
no sense. As my friend, Brandon, who also lost a parent this year, said, “It’s
like finding out the color green is no longer in the world.” The loss of
Mother, the giver of life, is more nonsensical still.

            But my relationship with my mother
went beyond that. A published poet, she gave me a model to which to aspire, and
was my best reader and mentor. Burying her ashes in Georgia a month ago, I read
these words from her poem, The Hurrying
Dead Run Back:

            “When in dreams we speak with them
or
            try to kiss them, they may
permit us.
            They extend no violence,
practice no
            rejection. We awake from
abusing them
            and know we have no longer to
do with
            assimilable flesh but with
traces growing
            fainter on the treasurehouse
cave walls
            of mind.

            In their haste, they have left off
            remembering, its perfume
lingering in
            the thick vestments of long
regard.”

            This season of fall holidays haunts
me. Columbus Day falls right at her birthday. Veterans Day resonated more than
usual as well. My mother was no veteran, but paying respect to the sacrifices
of others seems more important now. And Thanksgiving is coming, that special
day when we took particular joy in the general gift of Her Cooking.

            Well, we won’t be doing that any
more. For the first time in my life, I’ll spend Thanksgiving with my in-laws,
the Harrises, with my brother-in-law, Andrew, preparing a turkey bought from
Barry Kucher of Fare Game Foods. I’m grateful to Andrew, and thankful for my
second family. But it will be hard not to be sad when the day comes.

            Most of us, when we have our own
children, begin to reassess our own parents. It becomes easier to forgive their
perceived trespasses, and we develop a greater appreciation for what they’ve
given us. That appreciation is based on the lived understanding of the
difficulty of parenthood. But the sad lesson I’ve learned this year, is that we
simply have no idea of the shape and size of the space a parent occupies until
that shape becomes a hole. Then we do.

            My father tells a story of a friend
who, after losing his mother, complained of not having treated her well enough.
“Martin,” my father said, “we all feel that way.” Perhaps a mother is the one person we can’t ever repay or fully
appreciate. In a sense, I’m lucky; surrounding myself with her writing, I can
still be with her. And I’ll try to honor her by being a decent parent myself.
But surrounded by blessings this Thanksgiving, I’ll feel that all-too-human
loneliness of true loss, the surest sign of the endurance of love.

This article appears in Nov 20-26, 2002.