Thanksgiving

My mother made great Thanksgiving dinners. Once we had too many visitors for our little house and we had wooden boards placed on sawhorses for our table and a bed sheet for the table cloth. The weather was beautiful and sunny and perfect for an outdoor meal. My Dad and Marlise were there and two of Mama's friends from Washington state down for a visit. Both men from Washington, were a little bit in love with my mother. Mama wasn't married to anyone at the time. We had my Mama's friend Violet at dinner too. Her husband was away in the Navy.

I remember another Thanksgiving when my children were young and we lived next door to Mama and my last Stepfather. We called him Shorty. His name was Lee Roy Castleman. It was an easy walk to grandmother's house. Uncle Burt...Mama's uncle lived in her little house accross the driveway. My sister and her husband the their two sons were there and someone opened up a bottle of Cold Duck. Do they still have that? My sister's oldest son said, "Cold Duck and hot turkey." Everyone laughed and we remembered that through the years. I mentioned that today and my son David said he remembered when Jimmy said it all those years ago.

Back then I was living my life and not thinking that I was making memories. Sometimes I look back on all that has happened and I feel sad and a sense of loss. Things could have been a lot better. Mama could have lived to be 90 instead of dying at 57. We could have kept our house and not moved to Wyoming. E.R. had left me a couple of months before Mama died, and he got a job in Wyoming. I couldn't pay the bills. With Mama gone I didn't want to live next door anymore. So I agreed to go to Wyoming. We only stayed the summer and came back to Lakeside.

My Uncle Burt went into a home and so we moved into my mother's little house. The same one we lived in when we had too many people for Thanksgiving dinner years before. E.R. went back to Wyoming to work. One evening Shorty came over from Mama's house and told me that I was responsible for my mother dying. He said I had caused her to die. I was so upset I called E.R. and asked him to come back. We stayed  a little over a year and I went to beauty school. Then we moved to Ramona. I did like it in Ramona but then we only stayed two years. My Dad needed someone to manage the storage and so I took the job. My husband didn't want to do it. I said I was going with or without him. I had applied for a job at the Country Estates and finally was hired but it was too late. I was commited to move to the storage. Our marriage broke up three years later for the last time. We take care of David and Hailey and have a sort of friendship...Life can be so sad.

My first Thanksgiving alone was just me at the storage and some wine and very quiet. My kids were with their father. People invited me to dinner. My Dad and Marlise, my friend Janey, and my sister, all invited me...but I needed to be alone.

I was never totally alone at the storage after E.R. left.  My kids came and went. My father passed away two years later and I got to be friends with Marlise. Marlise and I began to spend time together and we had some good times. I think when my Dad was gone she didn't feel stressed with me because my Dad cared about me. I felt such a sense of loss when Marlise was gone. We were friends. I think it never gets easier. I cried so much at Mama's funeral and then we lost Uncle Burt and then my Dad. And during those years my Aunt and Uncle and my cousins and then Marlise's mom...who was the only grandmother I knew.

E.R. lived up in Ramona and then in an apartment in Lakeside and stopped drinking. Marlise let him rent the little house from her. She felt better with someone else on the place. Her mother came to live with her too. Then E.R. and I found out what was wrong with David. That brought us some bad times. It also meant that whatever we did we would never really separate and go our own ways...someone has to be there for David.

Then Hailey came. Marlise loved Hailey. We used to take her to lunch when she was just a toddler, Hailey and I had it good at the storage just the two of us. Marlise has been gone ten years now, and I live in her house with Hailey. I'm not as good at making Thanksgiving as my Mama was. But then when I was younger I did some pretty good dinners too. Even with the years gone I still hear the laughter from Thanksgivings past and the good times we had. So this is dedicated to my mother Lillian Elizabeth Ulery, my great Uncle Burt Byron Clark, My father Alfred Julian Toston, and my wonderful stepmom Marlise Dumser Toston.