In a way, I've been spoiled my entire life by having traditional holiday meals with my grandparents. I have divorced parents and I am married so I'm used to having multiple holiday meals but dinner with my grandparents has always been a consistent thing. My grandparents are my favorite people in the world and in 30 years I have never missed a Thanksgiving.
Until this year.
I tried to just not think about Thanksgiving. Like it was going to be any other day. My mother in law was here for the week and I tried to focus on visiting her and not on the fact that she was here for Thanksgiving. I basically pretended I was hosting a dinner party for no reason and focused on buying new plates and matching napkins.
We also ordered our entire Thanksgiving meal from my store. All we had to do was reheat it. It was a terrific idea. The food was good, and we didn't stress about cooking so we could just enjoy each other and visit. And since knowing I would be away from my grandmother was hard enough, I wasn't ready to head into the kitchen and use her recipes. I'm not ready to eat her food without her here.
I had a small cry when I prepared myself to call my grandpa. I had a big cry when he actually answered the phone. We talked for a while and I felt better. I had to compose myself and touch up my make up because Chris and I hosted Thanksgiving this year and we had guests coming over.
Remember my new friend Bodhi?
This is Bodhi Kaimana Sage and he is Chris's cousin. And we may be the loves of each others lives. This is the only picture I have of the two of us. It was taken in February and we were both sick. Normally he has a fabulous mohawk. Bodhi is a 5 year old Buddhist, kindergartner and lover of Spiderman. When he saw me a few weeks ago for the first time in 7 months he quickly told me my hair is a different color and asked me why I wasn't wearing my glasses. Bodhi, his mother Jeni, his grandmother Trish, his father Mike, and my MIL were our Thanksgiving guests and thanks to Bodhi, my sadness passed. He did make me cry, but it was happy tears.
Here is my Thanksgiving story:
After we all dished up and were seated someone suggested we say grace. As we are not a religious family we all had a little giggle but Bodhi got a very serious look on his face. He put his hand over his heart but was cut off by Chris. Chris naturally had his seat at the head of the table and told us a wonderful story about one of his donor patients. It was a Thanksgiving story that the donors family had told Chris about their loved one. When Chris was done, an impatient looking Bodhi put his hand back over his heart and said " Hey, Hey...". I took notice and motioned for every one else to put their hands over their heart also.
And then Bodhi led us in the Pledge of Allegiance.
I pledge allegiance
to the flag
of the United States of America.
And to the republic,
for which it stands,
one nation,
under god,
indivisible,
with liberty and justice for all.
His mother looks at him and says "And?"
Bodhi takes his hand off of his heart, places the two together and bows his head.
Namaste
Yes, I teared up when Bodhi led us in the Pledge. I just wanted to keep crying when he capped it off with Namaste. It was a sweet and beautiful moment and it is quite possible my favorite Thanksgiving memory ever already. We let Bodhi start us all off by handing him the puking cow and letting him pour gravy. He doesn't like gravy, but he likes watching the cow puke gravy so he was eager to keep the rest of us in gravy the entire dinner. Then we discussed whether cows can actually puke or not. (The answer is no.)
And so a new tradition is born. Chris and I intend on keeping the practice of saying the Pledge of Allegiance before Thanksgiving dinner alive throughout the years. I think we both really needed something that day to cheer us up. I know that we are both still getting used to being so far from our close family. But we happy for the opportunity to be in Bodhi's life.
Speaking of that crazy kid, he called us on the phone the next day. He just wanted to let me know that he had so much food the day before and had so much fun that he feels "compressed" today. Yep, compressed.
Me: "You feel compressed? When I feel compressed I lie down and take a nap. Maybe you should take a nap."
Bodhi: "Well I was thinking of maybe meditating and just trying to chill out."
Me: "Good call Bodhi. Maybe meditation will help."
Bodhi: "Yeah. Is Chris there too?"
Me: "Yeah but he is doing the ultimate meditation. He's still asleep."
Bodhi: "Oh, okay. 'Bye" Click
So maybe I am not the love of his life. Maybe he is just using me get to Chris. Chris is the BFG after all.
Regardless, happy holidays and namaste.
No comments:
Post a Comment