As I was making our Thanksgiving dinner, I was struck with a profound sense of sadness. Thanksgivng hasn’t been a happy day for me in years. It all started back when I was in high school.
In junior year I received a phone call from my biological father. He called to tell me that my grandmother (his mom) was diagnosed with cancer. I was devastated. As a little girl, I had spent so much time with gramma T. that she was my mother/grandma/Marry Poppins/best friend.
For Thanksgiving that year, my bio-dad drove me to see grandma. We all gathered to have dinner with her.
We all tried so hard to be joyful. We told grandma’s favorite dumb jokes, and any funny story we knew. Underneath it all there was a huge sadness.
They had discovered the cancer too late, and the chemo wasn’t working. (They had set up a hospice for her in her home.) Yet we were all in denial. Deep down knew she was going to leave us.
As we began to eat, our sadness deepened. Grandma T. was an amazing cook. (She would have taken Paula Deen down in a competition.) At this point the cancer had spread to grandma’s stomach, she could no longer eat. To swallow food caused her terrible pain. But, she wasn’t going to let cancer steal her dinner!
She would take small bites of everything. Then while we weren’t looking she would have to spit them out into her napkin. She commented on how moist the turkey was, and how fantastic the pecan pie turned out.
At one point I had to walk outside. I broke down. I didn’t want her to hear me crying. It felt so damned unfair! She was the kindest soul I have ever known. She never said anything mean, and had a kind word for everyone. Why her, why now?
She managed to hang on through January. She didn’t want to die during Christmas, and one of her sons’ birthday was early in January. She made it just a few days after.
Even thought it was been 13 years, I still have a difficult time on Thanksgiving. Part of my heart died with her, and it still hurts.
So to answer the Thanksgiving question: What am I thankful for?
Gramma T, I am so glad to have had her in my life, no matter how short the time was.
This is a beautiful tribute to your Grandma T and a wonderful reminder as to what's really important in life.
ReplyDeleteI am sad that I wasn't able to get to know her better in person. I am confident though that I will have the chance to hang out with her and laugh and sing with her soon in the heavenly kingdom. It's that kind of hope that keeps me pushing on through this sad world. I look forward to spending much time with her and learning about the love of God for protecting and helping each person make it as far as they did in this life.
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