A Grateful Heart In The Midst Of Adversity

 

For the last month or so I've had a serious case of writer's block and haven't felt motivated to write about anything. I guess these days all I can do is look at what's wrong in my life, why it's wrong and how I can fix my life. With the holidays and my birthday coming, Fall and Winter are my favorite times of the year. As a child, the holidays were filled with warmth, love, excitement, family and friends. Now not so much...it's no longer the same and I can't pretend I'm happy with the course my life has taken. Growing up during the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties, I looked forward to the holidays. Sure I've had my share of painful firsts, losing my grandmother in eighty six, great grandmother in ninety one, grandfather in two thousand and Mommy in two thousand five. You never get over the pain of spending those holidays without your loved ones, but you try to accept it, even if you can't deal with it.

For years I've made the best of life and all it's had to offer, more disappointments than good ones. When my grandmother died, I never said it out loud to Mommy, but I vowed to stand by her side celebrating each and every holiday. Never would she have to worry about being accepted by anyone. We'd make our own memories, leave a legacy and create traditions of our own. Well we got to spend about twenty years doing that until she died in two thousand five. Before that we cooked together every single year and I eagerly looked forward to it. Every Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Eve, I went to bed at six o'clock in the morning, because I'd be up preparing a feast to remember and I enjoyed it. If it meant my family ate, if it meant making them happy I was all for it. Cutting and cleaning up Collard, Turnip and Mustard Greens is tedious to say the least, but I just didn't feel good if I couldn't help Mommy and my family eat.

The older I got, the more responsibility I took on. By the time I was eighteen, I could cook a full course Thanksgiving meal and not miss a step in the kitchen...I WAS NASTY! Inheriting the gene passed down in the Cromer/Oliver family to cook is a blessing indeed. My great grandmother could burn a kitchen down and so could her girls, then the torch was passed to the younger generation! I took pride in learning how to cook and still do. But now I feel differently. What is it all for? Do you do it for a family of children who don't care or appreciate the time you've taken to slave over a hot stove. Coming home from work on Thanksgiving Eve just to season up your Collard Green pots, finally chop all them veggies for the three different pans of stuffing you're about to make. Pies, Mac & Cheese, Ham, Turkey and God knows what else.

Over the years the holidays haven't gotten any easier for me especially since Mommy died. Her passing the month before Thanksgiving changed my life immensely. I haven't been the same since. That first Thanksgiving without her was the most food I'd ever cooked in my life. I made so much food, I was giving it away and still had more to spare. But it did make me happy to sit down and watch my brother, sister, their spouses, my Dad and the kids eating. It was the hardest Thanksgiving of my life after Grandma died in eighty six.

It's been nine years since Mommy's been gone and every year I dread cooking alone, but I still do it. One year in two thousand ten, my two youngest were in the care of Lucas' mother from the ACS case brought against me by the kids and their aunt. You would think I wouldn't have had the spirit to cook, but I did anyway, because it's tradition for me. I come from a family with a strong background and though we've had our faults we have a legacy.
Right now, things are up in the air in  my life and the battles are plenty. But I can tell you one thing, I will always make sure the smells of Thanksgiving fill my home, so Cimaya and Jaden can identify with memories of their Mommy cooking huge holiday meals. Hopefully they will past these traditions on when they grow up and get their own families.