I feel so connected to you all right now. Was that movie a treat or what??
At least we turned it into a drinking game:
Dakota Fanning screams - 1 drink
Tear in Tom Cruise’s eye - 2 drinks
An over used cliché - 3 drinks
Barbecued son shows up at the end - chug
Other than that, my Thanksgiving was relatively uneventful. My in-laws were cranky and we were trapped in the house with them for 2 days. So… basically pure hell.
I’m just going to post an excerpt from an email from my sister:
"By the way, I’m not doing Thanksgiving alone with the parents again. I was tortured.
While Mom and I were looking through old pictures she kept pointing out my skinny past and telling me I needed to lose weight. True, but not what I want to hear when I’m going to be offered 35 different Thanksgiving carbs the next day. Then she found a wedding picture and asked me if I missed John or thought about him much. Well, no, not unless someone reminds me of my one, big heartbreak in life. Then she assured me that she and Dad had talked it over and they were fine with not having grandchildren. I told her, again, that I do want to have children. Gee, Mom, thanks for reminding me about my giant, biological clock ticking away. Finally, when she had me alone in the car, she started in on me about going to church.
So, this Thanksgiving I got to hear that I was old, fat, barren and a backsliding excuse for a Christian. Fun. Fun. Fun.
Next year, you get to host them."
And they wonder why I have T-day down in Florida with my roomie.
Last Thanksgiving, my cousin in-law died in my Moms house. Right before dinner. He was talking to my Wife at the time and just hit the floor. My brother and I performed CPR to no avail. He was in his late 40’s.
This year, my Cousin (Wife of the deceased) went with her sister to Mexico. Trying to get away from the horrible day that was the previous Thanksgiving.
My Cousins Mom stayed at my cousins home to look after the dogs. One dog fell ill (she was very old) and my Aunt had to make the difficult decision to put the dog down.
My cousin lost a husband last Thanksgiving, and a dear 4 legged friend this one.
Actually no Thanksgiving Day drama.
But the next day my mom complained about having trouble breathing and a tightness in her chest.
We got the official diagnosis yesterday: Massive lung cancer. With no real options: The cancer will kill her. A biopsy to determine a treatment would probably kill her (in her condition). If she survived, the treatment (probably radiation and chemo) would finish the job. If they remove her ventilator tube, so that she could just go home, she probably wouldn’t make it home.
The outcome is certain. “When” is not.
Somehow this year I got roped into cooking EVERYTHING.
A guy. Who wanted to watch football on his brothers brand new bigass plasma.
So after my mom and aunt make me cook everying (two turkeys, a ham, on and on,) she keeps telling me as she wanders into the kitchen… “You had better get that ham in the oven, it will be cold.” “That ham isn’t going to warm up enough.” “That ham isn’t cooked all the way through (it was, it said right on the damn thing) and you are going to make everybody sick.”
I had enough of this and I just blurted out right in front of her and her sister, “Hey, I don’t want to hear anything about the ham. Anymore. Nothing more about the damn ham.”
“Do you know who you are talking to young man???” was the response from Mommy Dearest.
“Enough about the damn ham! Or you can come cook it!” Was my reply.
Dad chokes on his Diet Coke in the living room with laughter. Mom wanders off.
The ham was warm, along with the two 10 pound turkeys, green bean casserole, 54 rolls, and every other thing we ate.
Take that, Mom!
Oh shit, Earl. I’m sorry to hear that. I hope she’s not in much pain.
Sorry Earl. Thats got to be rough. 
Damn. Sorry Earl. Sympathy and hugs here.
I don’t think I’ll complain about having to watch War of the Worlds anymore.
I’m so sorry. Are they making her as comfortable as possible?
So, you were groaning on the floor after the second reel, eh?
That sounds like a painful game. I doin’t think I have the constitution for it.
Stranger
Yep. “As possible.” They’ve tried each day to wean her off her tube, but her pulse-ox drops to 70-80 when they do. Her first night in she actually pulled her tube out, so they ended up restraining her hands. And keeping her sedated, so she is mostly (I suppose) blissfully unaware of her situation. But she can only handle a certain amount of sedation because her blood pressure drops dangerously low. So, this combination of things makes it impossible to communicate other than nods. She’s not “with it” enough to write messages. We’ve tried. She can’t speak because of the tube. And she can’t survive long without it. To complicate things, through some weird sort of finagling a couple of months back, my nephew has power of attorney, and at this point is hesitant to sign a DNR order. She might last weeks in this condition. At some point I hope the rest of the family realizes that we’re not prolonging her life, only her death and our agony. For myself, this morning’s visit will probably be the last time I go to visit her. It tears me up to much inside to see her drugged up with all sorts of tubes going in and coming out of her.
Damn, Earl. I’m so sorry.
My thoughts are with you and your Mom, Earl.
Nitpick#2
Do you remember the expression, “Yo! Holmes”…as in Sherlock Holmes? Popular prior to Homeboy–>homey–>homes…ect? I’ve always thought he was using the older expression.
OMG Earl,
I’m so sorry to read this. Sending you love and strength.
Earl, I’m so sorry. Your mother, your family and you are in my thoughts and prayers. I went through this with my father. I wish all of you strength and peace.
I agree - I’m pretty sure it’s “Holmes”.
I’m very sorry, Earl. Now for something that seems even more minor by comparison, here’s how this past Thursday went. By way of explanation, I’ll add that I woke up that morning at 6:30 and puked my guts out due to a stupid choice of midnight snack. So that largely ruled out the eating portion of Thanksgiving.
For the first time, my family went out for dinner instead of preparing all the food and getting together at someone’s house. Obviously it was a jinx. There were three main problems: my middle brother was sullen, my uncle was a dick, and - here’s the interesting new wrinkle - my aunt was tipsy.
So things were a little worse than a usual family gathering. (The first two are to be expected). The brother in question didn’t eat anything and did his best not to look at anyone, talk to anyone, or pretend he wasn’t upset he had to be there.
My aunt eventually picked up on it and asked him about it, and he told her pretty bluntly that he didn’t want to be there in the first place. She gave him a little unsober lecture about how sad that was, but that even if you don’t like them, you needed to do things with your family sometimes. For example, she said, her daughter didn’t want to be there and didn’t like us, particularly my mom. But they were staying until they left to go to another party. So there. She was a little wobbly and emotional, but wasn’t screaming. I have to credit my mom with brushing it off, as that must’ve been upsetting. As I said, my aunt had had a couple of glasses of wine with dinner and definitely had a few before we got there.
And that was dinner. We didn’t stay for dessert, and we were home by 7:30 or 8. I like Thanksgiving, but now that I think about it, last year was the best one I ever had, and I was hundreds of miles away from these people. Doesn’t seem like a coincidence.