Thanksgiving at the Cabin

Thanksgiving - 2008

We traveled to Arizona to spend Thanksgiving visiting with my mother. We stayed at the Cabin. Amanda and family came with us. It was wonderful to spend time in such a wonderful place - filled with so many wonderful memories. Two of our children were born while living there. We spent many weekends and holidays with my parents enjoying the company and the change of pace.

Filled with memories - so many - sensing a loss. Indeed, the place seems familiar in appearance, but empty of the life and loving warmth. Empty. As we approached I remember how the lights would go on as we approached, my mother already at the door to welcome us with a warm embrace and a meal. My father, not far behind offering a wiskery hug.

In the morning we were offered a feast - any breakfast you wished. The home already smelled of bacon being fried. Then we would head to the shop. Working with my father we would build toys, beds, chests, music boxes. Feverishly working, stoking the fire to speed the curing of the finish, making jigs to complete the job. The time filled with work, conversation, frustration, and love. To spend one more minute with my father in the shop. Alas, not know. Those opportunities lost. When again we meet, perhaps then. Perhaps then.

Then to the kitchen were we made feasts. Baking bread, making tamales, Chinese food, french fries, hamburger with chopped onion, using questionable food my father bought at a discount store, making candy - lots of candy.

Time, continues on and change is constant. I enter the shop, my heart aches as I see the tools all stored - like toys belonging to the lost child - still valued, waiting for the owner to pick them up, ever waiting. The kitchen. Everything works, but something is missing. Not the same, gone, not the same.

I sit and recall another time. As a small child. Arriving at the cabin. The smell of the pine trees strong in the air signaled we had arrived. Entering the cabin - with that cabin smell. My grandfather welcoming us with love. My grandmother standing by. It was a place filled with opportunities to imagine. Blocks of wood floating in a small stream - sailing vessels. The water bugs scooting across the water in random patterns served as villains. Mighty fortresses for protection made of the pine needles from the mighty ponderosa pines that filled the area. A fire in the fireplace at night - staring into the fire made blue and green when my grandfather put some powder into the fire.

Another era gone, another time.

We made a grave marker for my father. Merriann drew it out and I used a router to carve it. I purchased a large red-wood board to make the marker. Here I was, in my fathers shop, making one last thing for him. I ache.

It snowed when we placed the marker on his grave. There is not yet a permanent marker. I could not leave it as a poppers grave - anonymous, unnamed, vacant. We place poinsettias along side. You could count on poinsettias at Christmas from my father. Now they are for him.

We traveled every day to spend time with my Mother. She, deep, deep into that darkness of Alzheimer's. The cruelty. The person, empty of all that is them. Dead, but living. Alive but unaware. I touch her hands. Those hands that cared for me. Those eyes that once were filled with life and love are dimming. I hold her, grasping for that which is gone. A gaping hole in my very being. I sense her presence, distant. No sadness, no longing do I sense. Waiting. Waiting. I long for her warmth and affection. Go. Go swiftly. One awaits. One who's tender embrace awaits.

We too shall touch, filled with joy. When we next meet.