Thanks, Given

Dad did the pecan pies.  He did mincemeat.  He made the hard sauce - his big, softly fuzzy, strong hand could whip like nobody else I've ever seen, actually.  He could whip stiff cookie dough; I never have been able (or willing) to do that.  He liked his desserts, and he LOVED the way everyone else loved them.  It won't be long before I'm thinking of dad's fudge, dad's bourbon balls.  The year he and I made mint sticks like his mother used to make, and came up with a substitute that was great, for her icing, the recipe for which we didn't find that year.  That time he and I walked up to grandma's apartment in the snow - mom and Bro being away somehow, for some reason.  Walking in the snow with dad, to grandma's little place over the hill and (I kid you not) at least BY some woods.  Where she had sweet rolls baking.  How can life ever be better - than hot sweet rolls in the snow, stolen with your dad?

At the holidays, he did dessert.  Mom always took birthday cakes (and I never even understood the idea of choosing my OWN cake - it was white cake dyed pink, iced with pink seven-minute frosting, and topped with little heart red-hots spelling out my name, or my age, or a heart) baked in heart shaped PANS I now have in my own kitchen - or no cake at all for me, young lady.  Fortunately for me:  cake was cake.  That I missed out on choosing my own mattered little, when mom made it all so "me" with the Valentine-y theme.  (No, my birthday is not on Valentine's day.  No, it will not be disclosed; for the reason that my father died on it, it's a sacred and highly secured date for me; un-share-able.)

I can HEAR dad's spoon in one of those teacups now also in my own kitchen.  Bingbingbingbingbingbingbing.  Hard sauce.  The idea was insane to me as a kid - liquor and sugar, maybe a tiny bit of butter - all creamed up and poured on mincemeat pie.  I didn't even like pecan, then.  Gimme the pumpkin, and only the pumpkin.  (Mom usually made the pumpkin.  And we never can have a slice without "that time Aunt V. made it without the sugar.")

I can hear his voice, too.  A voice Mr. X never did hear.  And it breaks my heart - still - that there are those in this world who never met my dad.  Never, ever will.

Making bourbon balls with him at *my* house.  Having Thanksgiving with him and mom, the year before that, at my bright, high, wide, beautiful de-lux apartment in the sky.

Being up with him on Christmas morning, wondering where the heck the grandchild was.  We had to WAKE her.  Weird little kid; what kid isn't up at the crack of oh-dark-thirty on Christmas morning?  The joy of all of us, sitting on the floor - the camera my brother and siser-in-law gave me (I'm still cowed) - the toys for wee-un - the BOOKS for dad.  Noise, and biscuits, and fudge, and OJ and sparkling cider and US.  All of us.  Stollen in the kitchen, Christmas music on the radio when mom started cooking in real earnest.  The sound of his snoring, maybe.  But never for very long.  My sister-in-law exclaiming something funny, from the kitchen.  My niece, walking on my back.  Her leash, everpresent.  She was a dog that year.  Drove dad a little bonkers.  Oh, but holding her on his lap.  I never saw anything warmer.  Even the fire; we always had a fire.

To the day he died, my dad still clasped my own fist inside his palm like it was a tiny little thing.  I'm no elf, but dad's warmth was the biggest thing in the world.  Beautiful.

Pecan pie.  It was  SO sweet.  A sliver of that, a sliver of mincemeat.  But give me as much pumpkin as I can get away with.  And seconds on that, too.

The big bag with wrappings, off to one side.  S-i-l separated the ribbons.  Recycle the rest, or burn it.  I can't remember Siddy being there.  Must have left her at home, out of the chaos.  Or maybe - just dad, my niece, my family were so much more important.

Thanksgiving the year after dad died - it was just me, mom, and X.  I have a photograph - or did have, once - of each of them napping on a couch in the family room.  An afghan apiece.  It was such a quiet year.  Mom decorated for Christmas with so much blue.  She'd never used blue - but needed a change.  Those ornaments - that year - still carry more in their color than their color.  They're talismanic.  Blue.

Christmas after mom remarried.  Still joyous.  Never the same.  But Sid does come.  Last year she fell in love with the concept of, and the object of, her new, soft doggy blanket.  LOVES being under a blanket.  I should get two more of them; keep them in rotation, like the rest of her bedding.  Old monkey.  Dad loved her.  She was and is such a good sitting-at-your feet dog.  She was perfect for him; he could read, and she was there.

She half killed him, of course; fur and dander.  Lung disease.  But he liked her anyway.  He made me promise never to let her get all fat.

Nine years later, she's still as beautiful, and blessedly healthy.  Good old girl.


***


It was in November we ensconced his ashes.  Back then - November was cold.  Mom and my brother and me.  Again.  Alone there.


***


I still really don't go for the pecan pie.  Nor the mincemeat.  And nobody makes hard sauce anymore.  No bingbingbingbing.  There is no dad.  Hard sauce was a Dad thing.  I don't think anyone even whips the cream at home anymore.  But it's okay.  It's always family.

I miss him rotten.  He was much to be grateful for, and he was MY daddy.  Great Christ, how blessed, to be his child.  I hope I recognize even half how fortunate I have been.  And am grateful even half enough for that.