Thanksgiving 2009

This Thanksgiving was the first major holiday in my "year of firsts". I knew going into the holiday it might get rough but wasn't too worried due to a lack of strong tradition as well as specifically planning to be with family all day/weekend so the girls would have as much continuity and support as possible.

I guess lack of strong tradition isn't exactly accurate. We've done nearly the exact same thing for the last 12 Thanksgivings, spent the day with Rochelle's family at either her parents house or one of her brothers homes. So there was tradition in that since but it never seemed to be a strong tradition for Rochelle and in fact she was frustrated many years in not knowing the plans until the last minute. Especially when it involved her bringing something and needing to plan around the shopping and preparing of her contribution. So there wasn't a deep felt conviction and/or expectations around Thanksgiving, that's what I meant by a lack of strong tradition.

Since this is also a year of firsts for my daughters and everyone else in the family I knew there would probably be some expectations others might have including my daughters. Therefore I had decided earlier in the fall that for the sake of the girls the holidays should be treated as much as possible like the recent past. So once again we made the plans to attend Thanksgiving at R&S's home with the rest of the family.

On the suggestion of the grief counseling group I tried to anticipate issues or triggers to try to help prepare for a tough day. Doing so triggered a memory of my first Thanksgiving with Rochelle before we were married. That first year the meal was taking longer to prepare than expected (the norm I learned over the years) so we took a walk around the block. R&S live in a nice neighborhood in the Arden-Arcade area of Sacramento. Just down the street is an elementary school. We walked the long way around the block to the school and along the way came across some tree trimmings in someone's yard. On one of the short branches was a clump of mistletoe so I picked up the branch and stole a kiss. We continued on to the school playground and spent a few minutes on the swings before returning to the house.

So this year, 13 years later, I found myself taking my oldest daughter B on that same walk. Her younger sister A was well entertained with her cousin L. B is more the thinker, the analytical type and holds things in. She's been doing well in her grief journey thus far, at least it seems that way. I wanted to have a moment to share with her one on one that would help her not only for the day but the upcoming holidays when I know she would be missing mommy. We walked the same route, I told her the story about the mistletoe, and we spent some time on the swings. We even said a little prayer together while sitting on the swings thanking God for the time we had with mommy.

B had been smiling during our walk, but on the way home both she and her sister broke down and cried. They were missing mommy and so was I. Soon we were all crying as we drove home. The girls were tired from a long day so they eventually fell asleep on the drive. That night we all slept together in mommy and daddy's bed, as we had every night for the first couple of months.

We slept together the rest of the weekend as well and we all seemed to be exhausted and just needing family time together. Normally this would be the weekend we would get our Christmas tree and decorate. It was one of Rochelle's favorite family traditions. I was too emotionally drained so I opted to wait until the girls asked about it. They finally remembered later Sunday afternoon. I told them we would do it the following weekend and make a day of getting the tree and decorating together. They seemed satisfied to wait as well. We all slept soundly that night having survived Thanksgiving and knowing we would have another family weekend with the tree and decorations.