Thanksgiving Prep

There was a time in my adult life when I would spend Thanksgiving with my grandmother, Meemo, my mom's mom.

It was a tradition that began after the weakest Thanksgiving ever, Thanksgiving 1997. I had graduated from college, dropped out of grad school, and moved back to Denver. That year, my parents bailed out to the mountains for Thanksgiving with my uncle and aunt, leaving me and my brother stunned to find that we were on our own for Thanksgiving, being explicitly not invited to join the elders at elevation. Frere and I tried (a little belligerently) to rally. We'll have our own Thanksgiving, we said. We'll do it ourselves.

So with Frere, and my best pal, and Frere's young family, I celebrated Thanksgiving 1997 with a late and lousy meal at my parents' house, where I was living at the time. Some important things were overcooked, some important things were undercooked, and both cheer and ambience were noticeably absent from our proceedings. I vowed internally to have a better option next year, and with gritted teeth, started to craft a plan for a meaningful Thanksgiving tradition of my own.

And I was successful in that goal. Every year thereafter for Thanksgiving, I'd fly down to Meemo's house in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. For a few days, I would visit with family, watch cable, and be overfed. I'd spend hours cooking Creole specialties with Meemo in her pretty, yellow kitchen. I'd spend hours lolling on her bed with her watching tv after dark (we liked Emeril, Wheel of Fortune and the news). I relished the hours I got to spend hearing stories about her life and telling her stories about my life. And on Thanksgiving Day, Meemo and I would gather with the relatives at my aunt's house to celebrate with a decadent feast fit for kings, or Romans, or Southerners, I guess. Loved it, loved it, loved it. I went alone and basked in the attention. I went with my boyfriend in 2000, and came back subsequent years with that same handsome man, now playing the role of husband.

Then in 2005, three days before my 30th birthday, my grandmother passed away suddenly.

(And I still want to kick somebody.)

So, naturally, I spent Thanksgiving 2005 and Thanksgiving 2006 surly and isolated and drinking about it.

But in the last few years, I have come to understand that's not how Meemo would want me to play it. I never thought I was "honoring her memory" by acting that way, I just didn't know what else to do on Thanksgiving Day when I was supposed to have plans with her. Mom finally called me out, at some point, and I had to agree, Yeah, Meemo would want me to hold my head up. If she could weigh in on it, Meemo probably would want me to spend Thanksgiving with "Alta" -- my mom. Thanksgiving with Alta is something Meemo would love to do, if she could.

So in the last couple of years, I've been showing up for Thanksgiving dinner with my Mom & Dad, brother, nieces, and other local family and friends. I say "showing up" because while I typically aim to scintillate in social situations (youknowhowwedo), I'm nothing but a presence on Thanksgiving. I'll put on a dress, I'll bring mashed potatoes, I'll bow my head for prayer. But I'm waiting for it to be over.

Thanksgiving 2009? I'm not aiming for a lot more than showing up again this year. Frere's divorce has just become final, my uncle recently had to file for bankruptcy, the Handsome Man and I are entering another holiday season childless and not pregnant. Thanksgiving 2009 and I are hardly making eye contact at this point.

But here's one thing I plan to do this year to try and make the holiday a little special for me. I'm thinking maybe this year I'll have the heart to come home and watch the last and only video I took of Meemo, from Thanksgiving 2004 -- which was an awesome Thanksgiving, if it had to be the last one. It was great. And from it, I have my grandma on video, talking one-on-one with me about her visit to Denver the previous summer, and about her childhood in New Roads, and about her satisfaction with her life.

I haven't watched it since 2005, but I remember that in the video, Meemo talks about me. She talks about a conversation she had with my Baton Rouge aunt after the two of them visited us, the Denver clan, the summer before. And what Meemo said was that they agreed: "Alta's got a daughter, child."

I remember it word for word.

And it will be nice to hear it again.

Have a happy Thanksgiving.