Flies On the Butter.....

Norman Rockwell is not a friend of mine. I look at his art and it seems foreign to me. It is so different from what I plan to experience this holiday season.

Long ago, those holiday dinners existed. Generations around the table, lots of food and plenty of leftovers, laughter, stories, hugs and abundant love. What happened?

Life happened. We grew up, we married, we divorced, we remarried and we divorced again. There were steps and halves and ex’s and formers and friends. There seems to be a never-ending parade of changes…..life changes, time changes, and we change.

Even if I could somehow go back….no one would be the same. Nothing would be the same. Not just because we have all changed but because my memory plays tricks on me. Something that I remember dearly was probably not as wonderful as I think it was. Something that I remember as being tragic, or horrible, may not have been all that bad.

In one short year of my life, my mother was gone, my husband was gone, my father remarried, I remarried, and my older brother divorced and remarried. It seemed that we needed to wear nametags at our “Norman Rockwell” get togethers. I became a stepdaughter, a stepmother, a stepsister, a second wife, and a sister-in-law and daughter-in-law in less time than it took me to type this.

And now? The parents who loved me are gone. The mother-in-law and father-in-law who loved me are gone. The in-laws who never accepted me are still alive and still not speaking to me. The stepchildren and step grandchildren have disowned me…..and disavowed the part I played in raising them. My brothers are too busy with their own lives to worry about me at all.

I will be working on Thanksgiving, seeing patients in their homes. I will hurry my visits so I do not interrupt their holiday celebration any more than necessary. In return, I will go home to an empty house and a simple meal. And I will be “on call” until midnight.

I found out today that my son will be able to get his two sons for a couple of hours on the Sunday before Thanksgiving. We will cook all the traditional foods and sit down together to enjoy our meal as a family: mom, son, grandsons and son’s girlfriend. Norman Rockwell would paint more people into our picture, I am sure, but they won’t be there……

And we will enjoy ourselves. Traditionally, we go around the table and each of us will mention something that we are thankful for…….I will look at each person seated at the table and say that I am thankful for being with them.

After we eat and clean up the mess, and complain about how “stuffed” we are, we will go outside and play football….and I will win: nobody wants to tackle Grandma!