American Thanksgiving in Canada sounds at once celebratory and absurd. It started because Wilfredo got an entire week off from work and Paris was too far and expensive. Violet invited us to her house and I really needed to learn to make Thanksgiving dinner. I only cooked for Violet. Her love and ease in the kitchen helped abate my worries of failure. So that's how this strange and recent tradition started.
After Violet died we tried again to meet in Saskatchewan and for the first time my parents joined our motley crew of diners. Dorwin who loves saying "I only eat your brussels sprouts" and Wendy who can't quite imagine why I go to so much trouble just for them. Mel and Erin joined us because I had news to tell of Milo and his months away arrival. It was joyous around the table although one seat was painfully empty.
Two years later, Erin already aware of her illness, came to Saskatchewan and the sickness ate away parts of her and now she could at last see the beauty in the squat buildings, dust and hard labour. In anticipation of the next Thanksgiving she left two books for Milo to be opened when we came. Little did any of us know then that we would not be invited to take over their kitchen and table and stink up the house with tiny cabbages. They were too busy, too many things, too much to do to make space for our contrived celebration. So the books waited. Then Wendy mailed them to me, in time for Milo's birthday. There were so many packages I didn't open the books. Then we left for Victoria packing only hankies and I don't even know what I put into the suitcase on the day my dad texted you should come now.
And then Erin died. In beauty with love around, clothed in soft cashmere each day, and always a clean white T-shirt. We anointed her with facial oil, $100 cream and sprayed French mist to keep her cool. And she still died.
And I came home. Different and sad and darker, with thoughts that washed over me bringing torrents of tears for the loss of her and the pain of who she was sometimes, and the sadness of not getting more of whom she'd become. Then I saw the present: two books I'm sure because of their shape. Wrapped perfectly, creases in the right places not too much paper, you cannot see the tape, with matching ribbon tied in the professional bow. I heard her say with such pride at Christmastime "I could have been a present wrapper at a store or even taught Martha Stewart."
I cannot open those presents. I have tried. Tried to open them over Christmas, my birthday, her birthday, I've tried to find an occasion that will suit the weight of unwrapping the paper and being finished with this gift I'm sure is a book for young Milo. But I can't. So they sit on the shelf with the photo of Violet, the one with the rooster her head.
I'm sad but not sorry for my hesitation.
Inspired by "Cold Solace", by Anna Belle Kaufman