ONE PIECE MORE.....

                   "To life, I am, thankful..." - Jasleen Kaur Gumber

The October days drift by like whispers  over the ocean. Days  that forgot it had once been summer….. dry grass, garter snakes that slithered and sprinklers spouting  over parched lawns. It was time to crunch leaves, fresh from old trees. A time to run in damp grass and catch  spiders,  braving it on webs by  doorways. Autumn sprawling out before Thanksgiving. 

The world had become filled with  hot buttered toast,  sprinkled with brown sugar. A treat in those magical days. I used to scrape off the sugar and just eat the toast, dipping the crusts in the sugar.

Funny, in the few years I knew him, I don’t remember my father being at a thanksgiving dinner. I don’t know why. He always seemed to be there  to eat pie. My mother’s homemade, thick crust pumpkin pie, scented with spices and  dollops of fresh whipped cream. With a hot cup of tea steaming over the candles. I can still see my father savouring every morsel.

“One piece more,” he would say  and push his plate towards my mother.  They would share a piece. She would eat the whipped cream and leave the pie for him. 

  It was a gentle time, those days of Thanksgiving. My mother would set the table. When I was older it would be my chore. My grandmother’s best linen  tablecloth, ironed stiff with starch, the Blue Mikado set, just so, at our places, goblets , utensils polished to a sheen.  She would polish  them the day before.

Later on, I  would be the one to polish, and pretend I was a living in an imaginary castle, with a dragon to do my bidding. I got to light the candles. There are still scorch marks on the linen.

The turkey, some 50 pounds of it, was shoved into the oven. It’s girth always a challenge, as it spilled  out of the pan. Then out into the world we would go, for a walk to church, sometimes just a walk in the rain.

I can always  remember what it was like when we got home. The pungent smell of sage, the warmth of the kitchen and the potatoes and veggies bubbling away on the stove. Tea towels stuffed under the doors. My mother said it was so the smell wouldn’t go thru the house. She was wrong.

The  boiling pots on the stove were on low when we went out.  But they still boiled dry, scorching their contents. Fresh baked pumpkin pies from the night before lay  in a place of honour ,on the sideboard. The turkey, massive thing, poured it’s stuffing all about like crazy brains. 

For quite a few years,my mother set another place for my father, but over time   she let the cat sit there instead, his big green eyes peered over the table cloth. It was always just the two of us, with the cat. 

The rain crashed against  the  windows, while the fire burned hot and  loud in the grate, adding to the heat in the house. 

The cat, a tabby, always sat so perfectly at  his place.  A tiny piece of pumpkin pie with loads of whipped cream lay in front of him. He just  licked off the cream and left the pie.  Until he was very old, he still climbed into his place, every holiday. Until one  year he was  only a memory. A good memory.

   For years it was always the same. My mother and I would listen to records , old and worn, from days gone by. Records that my father loved. Always the same ones. She’d hum along in her tuneless voice.  

I daydreamed. The fire burned lower and longer, and we’d doze in the comfort of the chairs, while the music played. Until I was  nudged to go wash the dishes.

It was home. It was a quiet life. 

We took time to listen to the rain, to hear the fire crackle, the candles waver,  the cat purr, and  music fill  the rooms. And there would be new pots to buy  each year….. My mother never seemed worried. In the gathering twilight, she’d just cut another piece of pie, slather it with the remaining whip cream and we’d share it. In the quiet. In the loaming.

“One piece more,” she’d say, over the music still playing beside her. I can still see  her; I remember it all. And I’m forever thankful….

Photographs 2023