The Ghosts of Thanksgivings Past

"For the birds" -- and that ain't a bad thing when the birds are very much alive.

Thanksgiving has come and gone and with it, the 30 or so geese who briefly graced Harlem Meer for a couple of days.

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Notwithstanding the geese who brought temporary joy, I am glad Thanksgiving is over.

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Its never been one of my favorite holidays save for the time I was a child and looked forward every year to my Grandmother's home made Irish raison bread with caraway seeds. The aroma of it baking and wifting through the apartment is the stuff of dreams and the taste with melted butter was sheer heaven.

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But, my Grandmother passed away unexpectantly in 1969 and neither I nor other family members saved the recipe. 

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I guess we all wrongly assumed "Nanny" would live forever.

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In 1977, I became a vegetarian and that is the time Thanksgiving turned into a yearly battleground primarily between myself and my mother.

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Every year, my mother insisted on cooking a turkey and every year my daughter and I would either argue or finagle our ways out of eating it.

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I tended to argue with my mother, but my then very young daughter pretended to eat the turkey and when mom wasn't looking, snuck it to our dog under the table.

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I can still remember the arguments:

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"What is the matter?" my mom sneered sarcastically.  "You can't join the human race for one day a year?"

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"No, mom, I can't join the human race one day a year. Dining on a tortured corpse isn't appealing any day of the year."

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The rest of the holiday meal would proceed with cold, stony silence, my mom doing her best to guilt trip and me rebelliously refusing to give in.  Indeed, the only one who really enjoyed Thanksgiving was the family dog who got a belly full of turkey from my daughter.

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Looking back on those days, I wonder if there might have been more peaceful means to resolve the situation?

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Unfortunately, in the late 70's and early 80's there were not the delectable meat alternatives that exist today. But, even had there been, its unlikely my mom would have been open to them as she fought like hell to hold on to tradition.

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One of the difficult problems in making the lifestyle changes towards vegetarianism or veganism are the rifts it can create with family and so-called, "tradition."  One needs to be prepared for derision, scorn and even condescension even if not said outright in so many words.  Most people don't understand and "get" this significant and deeply personal lifestyle choice. They think its something one can "get over" one day a year for the sake of peace in the family.   

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But, that is like asking someone to throw out their values, "one day a year."

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Small wonder many comedians have a field day with Thanksgiving with endless jokes about family battlegrounds around holidays.

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That was definitely true in my family.  So much so, I grew to dread the holiday.

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My mom passed in 1996 and my daughter has since grown, married and moved away.

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Tara calls every holiday, but it isn't quite the same.

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Thanksgiving these days is literally and actually quite nicely, "for the birds" in my life as I derive most of the enjoyment of the day with live birds in Central Park.

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But, there is a small part of me that misses even the heated arguments of Thanksgivings past.

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And there is that huge part that misses my grandmother's magnificent Irish bread!

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Mom, Nanny, wherever you are, I hope you understand how much you were loved (despite inevitable conflicts) and are now missed.

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But, I will never miss the turkey.

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As the "lion will lie down with the lamb," I trust there are no predators or prey in heaven, I trust there are no slaughterhouses and I trust there is no meat of animal flesh.

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Perhaps one day we can all finally get along.  -- PCA

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