Not the way it was

 

Friday, November 27, 2009

 

The weather held off to get us through Thanksgiving, warm with enough sun to allow us to go into the yard. The rain and cold came today, dampening the mood with its change of season. It is a blue Thanksgiving, and I can’t exactly say why. Maybe it is because this is the 40 th anniversary of my first and only Thanksgiving in LA, which I slept through in the East LA apartment Louise later dubbed “Roacheville” because of the infestation.

I had just committed the great crime of my life and had taken up hiding in the Mexican section of the city while I plotted a way to go fetch Louise from her digs outside of Denver.

I used to stay up late watching movies on TV – movies interrupted by that silly used car salesman whose name was Williams.

I stayed up so late that I slept the whole Thanksgiving away, and this became the motivation for me to seek out Louise finally – even though I had originally stolen the money to fetch her in the first place.

Now, 40 years later that moment still haunts me in some ways, especially since I slept though my nearly 40-year-old-daughter’s phone call and had to call her back and talk to her answering machine – by which time she and Louise were already making their way north of Scranton to see the family with whom they always spend the holidays.

Ruby called later after her return, worried that I might be asleep. She was upset about the change of fortunes this year’s holiday had brought.

Earlier this year, the head of that household had died. Perhaps Ruby and Louise should have been warned to avoid the holiday after the cold reception the family had given them at the hospital leading up to the death.

“They treated us like outsiders,” Ruby told me. “We’ve known them and been with them for more than 20 years, and suddenly, we weren’t welcome.”

This extended to the family’s tradition. In the past, they all mingled as if one large family. But this year, the coldness prevailed, and the jokes of the past, the walk out to the car wishing them well ceased.

“And they invited us,” she said.

It is difficult to understand what went on since I do not know the people involved, but clearly, the lack of the father changed the family, and in their seeking comfort in each other’s company over the loss, they decided to sever ties with those they do not see as part of that inner core.

With no family of their own, except for me, this leaves Louise and Ruby void of a tradition they can depend on year after year, and paints a dismal future.

I feel as much at a loss because this Thanksgiving also reminds me of the fact that the rest of my family has died, all those souls to whom I was emotional attached for so long. That lonely Thanksgiving in LA was the first one I had spent without them, and though I did not get back to them until three years later, I knew in my heart they were always there, always waiting, always willing to welcome me back. Watching them fade away has left me with a similar kind of void Ruby and Louise feel, only one that has come about more slowly, and with plenty of warning.

So that 40 years after my first sleeping through Thanksgiving, I slept again, exhausted not from late night TV, but from life, and knowing this time that I have no family waiting for me at some future date – unless, of course, they wait on the other side of the great divide, which I still hope will be many, many lonely Thanksgivings from now.

Life can suck sometimes, but what’s the alternative?