My Wonderful Mom and Dad
As Thanksgiving Day approaches I find my mind wandering and thinking more and more about my mom. As chance would have it, my mom died on Thanksgiving Day in 1996. Her death forever changed that holiday for me. I will always remember that bleak November day when my dad yelled up the stairs at me to get up because my mom had died. My poor dad’s heart was broken on that day and so was mine. I lost my very best friend and most avid cheerleader. My dad lost his whole way of life as they did everything together. He had to figure out how to live his life without the physical presence of my mom, his wife of sixty two years!
My mom was a “super” woman. She and my dad had fourteen children together, ten of them boys! Mom was a farmer’s wife that stood beside her husband in the field and a teacher that actually rode the bus to school just like the kids! My mom did so much for so many all of her life! Holidays were a special time for mom. She cooked and baked and always tried to make the holidays special for anyone that came home to visit. It wasn’t about getting gifts but about breaking bread. Mom said there was always room for one more. Holidays she cooked for 20-30 people daily for the whole holiday season. Relatives would come and go and she would just keep on doing what she always had to provide the meals that were necessary for such a large clan. In fact when mom died, she basically supplied a lot of the food for all the people that came to stay for her funeral. Family came from all over the country and she fed them with her baked pies, cookies and her pantry filled with whatever was needed.
The night before mom died I only got to see her a few minutes before she went to bed as I had taught that day and had to drive 260 miles to get home. I know she had a great visit that night with my sister, Colleen, and I wish I could have been there as well. It seems so strange that she died on Thanksgiving, but we all noted that it was an easy time for people to get home for her funeral as they already had time off from work. It wouldn’t be too difficult to take a couple more days. It was just so like my mom to make life a little easier for everyone even when she died.
With all of these years that have passed, her death is still so fresh in my mind that it has been difficult for me to see much beauty in Thanksgiving. I can be thankful for many things and that is not what I’m talking about. It just seems that the shadow of that one day will always and forever be with me. November will always seem like a cold, dark, unfriendly month that is a vessel for the death that is coming. The trees have lost their leaves and everything appears so desolate and devoid of life. The only saving grace for me is the thought that Christmas is near and I can put up tree. Something about watching those little Christmas lights twinkle makes me feel all is right with the world again!