Post Punk Kitchen Forum

It's US thanksgiving, and while I'm not there at the table looking at an empty chair, it is still one of the days that I most miss my dad and my daughter. It's not an easy day.

When we have thanksgiving at my mom's house (which I haven't been to in more than 10 years), she uses a beautiful hand painted tablecloth that my father painted with these weird ball-point fabric paint tubes when he was in the hospital in traction for 6 months when I was a little kid. I remember going to the hospital and seeing him there, and asking if he was going to break if they kept pulling his feet like that. My father was bored out of his head and painted things, I remember being so obsessed with the tubes and the glittery gold one and the way that some colors smelled different from the others. I didn't get along with my dad, but I miss him and wish I could talk to him today.

I know at least a few of you today are missing your loved ones and maybe having a hard time. I'm thinking of you and sending you good thoughts. Big hugs.

Hugs, torque.

It's been a roller coaster kind of day for me, but I'm hoping it'll stay okay like it is now.
More hugs.

Love to you, Torque.

It's a happy day for me, but it's also true that I've been missing my grandparents a lot more than I usually do for the last couple of weeks. In a way, though, I like it, because I like remembering them and feeling that they are closer to the foreground in my heart.

<3 to all of you.

Big family meals are when it hits me that my grandparents are all gone. We lost them all within a year a half (3 of mine, 2 of my husband's) so it was a whirlwind of sad. But Thanksgiving is when I miss my grandpa teasing me for eating a ton of mashed potatoes and I even miss him whining about the weird food kelly brought without meat in it. I super miss my grandma getting all giddy and nearly bouncy over the stupid pumpkin pie. My parents were kind of a bummer today because they miss them at holidays a ton too, so that's extra sad. But my sister's baby learned how to laugh, so that was a nice distraction at least.

Torque, I love you. Your lost family members are here in my heart today. Thanks for sharing your story about your dad's tablecloth.

Thanksgiving reminds me of being a kid and makes me so sad for the family relationships that have been severed since. Most of these people are still alive, but are either so toxic that I can't have relationships with them, or just so separated by time that I don't know where to start. And maybe I don't want them back for every day, but today I wish I could at least have them for one of the big Thanksgivings I remember from my childhood...

My family didn't do anything this year. I spent the afternoon in the hospital with my sister, who slept through most of it. I'm glad she slept because then she's not in pain. I kept thinking about how this will be her last Thanksgiving. It just sucks.

I'm so sorry, fatcat.

My best friend, who was always my thanksgiving buddy when i lived in the US, spent the day in the hospital too (she's waiting for a liver transplant and prospects aren't very good), and I think thinking the same thought about her that you just said, that it is her last thanksgiving, made me even more upset than thinking about the folks that are already gone.

I didn't hear about this fatcat, I'm so, so sorry. I can't even imagine what you're going though. Huge hugs and more love than you can imagine to you <3 xxx

I am so sorry fatcat. You and your family have been in our thoughts. I can't imagine how hard it must be to be losing your sister, especially under the circumstances. Sending you tons of good thoughts and some peace in this difficult time.

I'm so sorry fatcat. I hope your sister sleeps as much as she can. Hugs to you and your family.

I'm so sorry, fatcat. I'll be thinking of you guys.

torque - I hope your friend gets a liver. Thank you guys for your support. I really appreciate it and it helps more than you know.

I'm a horrible daughter, like horrible. I haven't called my mom. I should call her now but she might be shopping, she is crazy.

Anyway, since my grandfather died last year, I get all mopey on any days of significance. I guess I'm practicing avoidance. My mom probably interprets as me not caring. Not purposefully but I made my thanksgiving dinner pretty close to my grandparents thanksgiving dinners and didn't realize it until I had planned everything out.

I'm sorry, torque - these kinds of occasions can be really, really hard. This year is the third cycle of holidays since my mom passed away (my dad died in 2007), and my grief at having lost both of my parents seems to hit me sort of randomly. Everything will be fine, and then BAM: I feel like I'm about five years old. We hosted dinner yesterday, and I spent a super domestic, pleasant afternoon with my partner on Wednesday, cooking, doing holiday prep, getting the house in order, etc. Thanksgiving day itself went fine, but now today I'm feeling totally sad and bummed and like an orphan...part of me feels like curling up in a ball and sobbing, while another (probably more sensible) part is trying to think of something that might comfort/make me feel better, but I'm just totally out of sorts. BLAH.

this is almost exactly the wording in an email i got from a friend today. grief is so sneaky, as you say, it sneaks up and hits you with a big snowball when you least expect it.
thanksgiving in the morning i went out the door and thought "oh, it's thanksgiving, this might be one of those days." but i was fine, til some stupid thing happened, knocked me off balance, and then bam, it was a big fat snowball, right in the face. sneaky, sneaky.

hang in there peeps. now we, or i at least, have to get through christmas too.

It's really nice to see a thread like this. Positive vibes for all those feeling sad for those lost and far away during the holidays, or always.
Making my mom's sweet potato pie casserole was a really emotional and beautiful experience for me for years after she passed. It's been a couple of years since I've made it now (it makes A LOT), and 8 years since she passed, and sometimes (well, usually, for me) it's really nice to avoid large gatherings at the holidays and just spend them quietly or in smaller groups of friends. I talked on the phone with my sister, who herself, was really disappointed that our brother and father (who I'm estranged from, but that's a whole other storytime) bailed on her last minute and didn't seem to see the value of visiting on the actual holiday and live in their own world.

Hearts you guys. <3<3<3

:hugs: I'm sorry ya'll are having a rough time.

I'm just plain not observing any holidays this year. Somebody dropped offer some Trader Joe's vegan food for Thanksgiving so slowly eating it, it'll last a few days. Holidays were always stressful as a kid, and last year were stressful but I put up with it for my daughter's sake and now that she's gone I just don't care. I felt like punching the store clerk for telling me happy holidays. Gonna stay away from stores now.. (we didn't go to Black Friday, it was a thrift store to get out of the house)

Probably going to work on the holidays just to have something to do other than be bitter. At least I have a cat now, she makes me kinda good I guess.

big hug Shanti.

So much love to you Shanti <3

This. I wish I could give you a big hug, make you some soup, and have anything meaningful or helpful to say, but I can't imagine what you must be feeling. Sometimes it seems as if the holidays were deliberately invented to rub salt in existing wounds. (Malevolent design?)

Yup, just do your thing. People want others to be cheerful but it just doesn't work that way.

I just found out this morning that my best friend's mom, who has been in the hospital since Wednesday night, has ovarian cancer. I feel really bad for my friend, because her mom IS her support system, and if she passes, I don't know what's going to happen. I visited her in the hospital this afternoon, and when she said, "oh, my other daughter is here!" I could've cried.

My sister passed away in June. Unfortunately she didn't make it to last Thanksgiving because on top of the cancer she was dealing with, she broke her foot and ended up in the hospital because she needed surgery. So in some ways, it didn't seem that odd to not have her here, but then suddenly it was.

My husband and I always put up our tree the day after Thanksgiving. I went through my sister's box marked "Christmas stuff" and found several ornaments in there, including one tiny picture frame. We hung the ornaments, and I will put a picture of her in that frame. Now there is a little bit of her in my family tradition. Not quite the same, but not nothing either.

I've been thinking of my deceased maternal grandmother, AKA Oma, a lot the past year.. but especially in the past few days. I have the last birthday card she ever sent me up in my room, on the book shelf where I can see it all the time. She had taped in a label with her address on it. I never wrote to her and rarely visited since we didn't live in the same area and I wasn't close to anyone on my mom's side of the family, except for my Oma. I feel like that was her way of saying she wanted to see me more and I never followed up on it and I am so mad at myself :(