The Opium & Valium Would Take A Hit

A Thanksgiving Story.

For a couple of hours out of the whole year, we are the people that we always hoped we would be. - Scrooged

My grandmother was a proper woman who got ready every morning at a well lit vanity. My grandfather graduated top of his class from the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and founded his own engineering firm. 

Their home sat on a beautiful lake in Indiana and they were proud members of the Foxcliff Golf Club which was evident by their collection of fox coasters, figurines and glassware. 

They had three children. 

My mom, the oldest, had me when she was a senior in high school. She was arrested twice while I was young. She drove the getaway car for an armed bank robber (her boyfriend) and she was an accomplice to that same man’s cocaine dealing business, by then he was her husband.

She and my grandparents got along about as well as you might expect. 

My uncle, the middle child and prodigal son, never lived up to my grandparents’ ambitions for him. He wasn’t much good at school so instead of being a successful engineer like his dad, he worked odd jobs and just got by.

He was married to a woman who showed up to Thanksgiving one year with her two front teeth missing. They’d been knocked out in a bar fight.

Getting in the door on Thanksgiving meant surviving a swift punch in the arm by my jovial uncle followed by a bear hug that hurt almost as much. He was a good man.

My aunt, the baby, was married to the boy next door. Literally. His parents also had a wonderful view of the lake and belonged to the Foxcliff Country Club. They were married in a beautiful church ceremony. I was the flower girl.

We got together one day every year as a family. Thanksgiving. My grandparents, my mom, my uncle and his wife and my aunt and her husband. All eight grandchildren were there. I was the oldest. Beccah was the youngest. 

My stepfather wasn’t invited. They said it was because he had been arrested and that sort of thing wasn’t allowed in their home. But we all knew what wasn’t allowed in their home was that he was black. 

I wanted to say, “Mom was arrested too and she’s here,” but kept it to myself. That would have meant we would be heading home before pie was served.

Ashtrays were everywhere, lit cigarettes hanging precariously on the edges forgotten by the owner, already another one lit in their hand. 

The smell of turkey and Yves Saint Laurent’s Opium battled for attention in the smoke-filled air. My grandmother’s perfume of choice and if she was present, so too was the scent of Opium.

My mother couldn’t afford her own and upon arrival, would head straight to the master bathroom and spray so much on herself you could taste it when she sat next to you. It was a relief each time she snuck back upstairs to search for my grandmother’s hidden bottle of valium.

The Cowboys played soundlessly on the television. Arguments could be heard by children and adults alike from every corner. Occasionally you could hear my grandmother shooing someone out of her kitchen or angrily shouting, “SANDY”. 

My mother had buried her finger into the mashed potatoes and licked it clean. I didn’t have to be in the kitchen to know. It happened every year.  

The Thanksgiving table was set with my grandmother’s finest china. It was my job as the oldest grandchild to place her polished silver, kept safe all year in a felt lined box, on the table. Salad and dinner fork on the left atop a cloth napkin, knife and spoon on the right. I had to be reminded every year. 

When dinner was finally ready, we would all take our seats, including my mom, while my grandmother and aunt placed the pyrex dishes full of lukewarm sides on the table next to the equally lukewarm turkey my grandfather had carved. 

My grandmother always took her seat last. She stayed busy in the kitchen until my aunt would say, “Mother please come sit down, you’ve done enough.” Recognition for her hard work meant she could finally take her seat. 

We would each hold the hand of the person on either side, lower our heads and a prayer was said by my grandfather. I always felt like an imposter when he prayed. We weren’t church people. Sometimes my aunt and her boy next door husband would take their kids, but certainly none of the rest of us saw the inside of a chapel if not for a wedding or a funeral.

I finish my own prayer silently, “Please let everyone be nice to each other so I don’t have to leave before pie. Amen.” 

As soon as the prayer ended my grandmother would instruct my grandfather to begin by serving up his plate. Ladies first was only when opening doors in my family. He would start with whatever dish was next to him, put a big spoonful on his plate and pass it along as the table lit up with compliments and thank yous for my grandmother. 

Childhood stories would be relived, arguments would ensue, peace would be regained and then unravel again. The familiar tension was in place. Everyone could relax. 

For a couple of hours every year around that table, we were an actual family. Laughing, talking and eating together like they did on tv. It was the only time I had a home cooked meal and I tried real hard to eat slowly. My mom didn’t cook.

As the empty plates were being cleared and the darkness made the lake outside disappear, I knew the day was coming to an end. We would soon be gathering our coats and heading to our cars. 

But first, my grandmother would retrieve the pies from the laundry room where they were cooling and slather them in whipped cream from the plastic containers that had been sitting out on the counter calling to me like a siren. 

There was a bit more time to laugh, to feel the comfort of belonging. For just a little while longer, we were a family.

It’s a complicated thing, our families. We don’t choose each other, we arrive connected. Along the way we hurt each other, we hurt together, we laugh, we cry, we grow apart, we find our way back.

Everyone is gone now. My grandparents, my mom, aunt and uncle, even my treasured Beccah passed this year. No more punches or bearhugs greet me at the door on Thanksgiving. No more “Sandys” being yelled from the kitchen. 

The only thing that remains is my grandmother’s china, her silver stored in the same velvet lined box and each year as I set the table, the memories that fill me with longing for one more Thanksgiving with them all.

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