Easier, yes. It’s getting easier. It’s my fourth holiday season without my mom, and it’s definitely easier now than it was.
But easy, no. I’m not sure it will ever be easy.
Thanksgiving was always our holiday — starting when I was in middle school, we would research recipes, invite everyone we knew, and spend days cooking together. Up until the pandemic, I’m not sure we ever spent a Thanksgiving apart, and we always did the cooking ourselves.
The first year without her, I tried to duplicate that intensity alone. I threw myself into elaborate prep starting the Monday before Thanksgiving, making gravy that called for 3 pounds of chicken wings, fresh ginger, dried cremini mushrooms, and a beurre manié. I baked three different pies, plus bread bowls for soup. I made spinach dip, dressing, two kinds of potatoes, cranberry sauce, bourbon-mashed sweet potatoes, and some sort of roasted squash and Brussels sprouts situation. I think my intention was to just stay busy so I didn’t have to feel anything … but by the time Thanksgiving dinner rolled around, I was burned-out, sad, and half-drunk after opening some wine to deglaze a pan and then drinking the rest of the bottle. I don’t remember eating a single thing.
The second year, I think I maybe baked a pie and let my in-laws order the rest of the meal. I just couldn’t do it.
Last year, year three, was my first one even close to back to normal. I made the things I love (mashed potatoes with a normal pan gravy, dressing) and the things my kids love (cherry pie for Georgia, pumpkin for Rowan) and I let the rest go. I was still sad, still wistful, but the day was not as searingly painful as it had been the two years before.
This year, I expect, will be much the same as last. The old traditions are fading into memories, and we are starting to make new ones. Georgia likes to help me with the cooking, and Rowan has her own places to go and people to see.
We’re moving on because we have to. But we are incorporating my mom into our celebrations in ways that feel natural — telling the story about the horrifying tomato aspic she made one year, using her recipe for soft rolls, eating her favorite breakfast on Thanksgiving morning.
And of course, I see pieces of my mom in myself and both of my daughters — their creativity, their sense of humor, and their inner strength. These traits are a beautiful reminder of the legacy she left behind.
I don’t want just a legacy, though, and that’s the part that still hurts. A legacy is a fine thing. Memories are a wonderful comfort. Recipes are a way to keep family heritage alive. But I don’t want a legacy or memories or recipes so much as I still want, even at age 44, my actual mom.
I want her to tell the aspic story. (God, it was so disgusting.) I want her to make the rolls. I want her to eat bagels and lox with me.
I want her to be a part of it all still, making new memories and new culinary monstrosities, teaching Georgia how to knead bread and offering her thoughts on where Rowan should go to college. I even miss the inevitable fights we would get into every year at some point during the stress of the holiday season.
That’s why it’s still not easy and probably never will be.
But “easier” is better than “harder.”
And for that, I am honestly very thankful.
