Happy Thanksgiving 2012

Thanksgivings conjure up all sorts of memories of holidays past.

My earliest recalls are at a farm in Chepatchet, Rhode Island.
My 7 cousins and their parents lived there and we always seemed to spend
Thanksgiving Day with my Mom and Dad, Uncle Ben and Aunt Audrey, Uncle Bob and Aunt Grace and the 3 families of children totaling 16.

It seems fitting to celebrate this holiday on a farm. A day of cooking and preparing meats and vegetables for a warm evening feast. As the children, we would roam the farm; feeding the chickens, running with the dogs, playing hide and seek in the barn and having all kinds of fun. Meanwhile, the moms and dads toasted the day while gathered around the hearth and the turkey in the kitchen.

As the sun went down, we would sit around a large farm house table passing the turkey, stuffing, summer squash and peas and loving my grandmother Riley's left-handed potatoes. Everyone had a part in Aunt Audrey's kitchen and it all seemed to go off without a hitch.

The cousins all loved apple pie but there seemed to be pecan and mince as well. They served the pie with ice cream and my dad always like coffee ice cream with his pie.. After dessert my uncles, Bob and Ben sometimes known as Bad and Worse, would get out their banjos and start singing and playing with all of us..It was a great time and we would laugh and sing some of their old songs or just hum along if we didn't know the words.. It was sort of the grand finale to the holiday..

At that time the television was limited to one room in the home and they probably also had one wall phone.. So there was no technology; no cell phone distractions, no television football bonanzas.. AND everyone was talking, laughing and conveying.. Happy times they were..I remember listening to a lot of stories and lively discussions of their past and Thanksgiving Days of long ago.

In later years as we all grew to teens, Uncle Ben sold the farm and moved to Florida to retire with Aunt Audrey.. We had held Thanksgiving a few times with everyone in suburbia but it never seemed to have the same feeling of being away from it all, out on a farm..

I went to college in Burlington, Vermont and once I graduated, I moved and worked in NYC.
Working in the city made me realize how much I missed the farms and the mountains, so we restarted that tradition of Thanksgiving on the farm. We are now in our 34th year of celebrating Thanksgiving here and it seems fitting since most of the food we eat, celebrate and are grateful for originates here in places like Vermont..

Thanksgivings conjure up all sorts of memories of days gone by. 

I am happy to spend a day of thanks and gratitude with my husband and children right here on a farm

looking to a future of more people appreciating each other, communicating more and spending more family time together. 

This is an important American holiday which helps all of us get through the dark cold winter and bring light to the rest of the world on how important it is to give thanks..

Amazing She Was; Audrey

                                                            Riley Gang. circa 1980

  

(To my cousins; Sharon, Stephanie, Robin and Pat)

Dear Girls,

I am so saddened to hear of Audrey’s passing. She is the world's best mother. 

I am in awe of your mom to this day. Birthing and raising 7 children, she did it quietly 

and flawlessly with Uncle Ben off each week connecting VT. to the rest of the world working for AT&T.. Amazing she was, Audrey..

One time a few years ago when Lilli was a freshman in college, we were driving around Sarasota, Florida and visited Aunt Audrey when she was still living with Uncle Ben in "Golden Gulf Gate".

It was the beginning of car navigators and we called our navigator Sandy. I guess because we were at the beach. Little did we know that name would come back to haunt us this week. But it helped us to find your mom and dad. We had a very nice visit. She showed us all of the grapefruit and orange trees right in her front yard and the beautiful eucalyptus.. It was her very own paradise..

Years later when Gene got his navigator for the car, he asked “what should we name this navigator,?” and immediately I said “Audrey, “ after your mom, because she was to me, the compass for our family after the other five had passed.

She was a role model; raising 7 children on a farm in the country, in the fresh air with lots of room.  And once the kids were grown, she was off to Florida to be surrounded by family in her later years.  She had a wonderful life and that is what I always try to focus on when someone close to me dies; what a great life on earth they did have..

So with Audrey joining the other five, it is hard for us down here on earth because she has been with all of us the whole way..

So Cry, cry and cry as hard as you can, whenever you want to -- because you will miss her more than you know. I think losing my parents and Kathy was the hardest thing I have ever experienced in my life..

But time does heal.  It has been 4 years since Mom died, 6 years since Papa and Lisa and 9 years since Kathy.. Suddenly though, after their death, you will feel them always with you and even closer when you need them in a spiritual way..

Holding babies helps a lot as well as spending time with your children and grandchildren.. That and making the best of each day is what it really is all about.  We are all here for a very short time and seeing other people leave is not easy.

These people made us; literally and figuratively.. And for some reason after they die, you feel even closer to them especially in times of need and uncertainty.  And don’t forget to walk, everyday, because you will see wonderful things and you will feel better..

When the hurricane hit last week on the north east coast of the country and left the place in Narragansett standing, I said to Rick, “well, we’re still here and so is the place, “ so onward we go, all of us …

My heart aches for you girls. But you have each other, so be strong and stay in touch.

Love you,

JMC