Thanksgiving Leftovers

His steps were slow, as if lifting bricks instead of shoes, and he leaned just a bit on my brother’s arm. He wore a thin blue jacket and tried his darndest to stand straight and tall like the proud Norwegian of his youth.

I stood at the front door watching his progress up the November slicked sidewalk with mixed emotions. I was pleased and excited that this year, like so many of the past, he had chosen to make the seventy-mile trip to share our Thanksgiving dinner. And yet watching his frail movements forced me to acknowledge the passage of time, and to wonder how many more Thanksgiving meals were in my father’s future.

Swallowing back those thoughts with a disguised throat clearing, I hugged him as he entered our home knowing his stroke wouldn’t allow him to hug back. The best he could offer was a light half squeeze with his good arm, and I lingered in the moment. Dad was never a hugger anyway. He used to prefer giving gentle back-pats…usually three quick taps…or a hardy handshake.  Those were more in keeping with his stoic upbringing, but no less meaningful.

It was difficult to avoid contrasting my father as he stood before me in 2012, and the father I knew growing up. I find myself behaving in ways that support the man of my childhood and resist the man who seems foreign in his aging.

For instance, as I prepared the meal, I relished the idea of my father loading his plate with all his favorites, and then going back for second, and sometimes even third, helpings. He was always a hard worker and the calories never stuck on his frame—a genetic factor that unfortunately was not passed on to me. Dad loved to eat, and eat he did. As a depression baby he knew hunger in his childhood, and there was a part of him that swore his children would never want in that department. We didn’t. His credo was, “Eat all you want, but eat all you take.” Waste was not acceptable.

But on this day I was saddened to see how little food he actually ate…a small taste of potatoes and gravy, a tiny bit of turkey and dressing, a teaspoon of cranberry sauce, and of course, a piece of his beloved lefse buttered and folded into bite-sized portions.

And what of his dignity as he asked me if I had something he could use as a bib? A bib? For my father who built skyscrapers and had abnormal strength? For my father –the man I thought could do anything?  Yes, a bib. My brother apologized for forgetting Dad’s bib at home, so apparently this is the new normal. As hard as Dad tried to eat neatly, his stroke- induced physical limits would equate to a mess on his clothing, so I improvised with a hand towel and two paper clips. It worked if he didn’t move around much.

Later, when the pie and ice cream were served, he traded in his fork for a spoon. It was too hard to chase his food around with a fork. He needed scooping options. “Oh, of course,” I said, mentally kicking myself for being so obtuse and for possibly embarrassing him yet again.

There are so many limitations one never thinks of until he or she is faced with the realities of a stroke…or of a parent who no longer fits titan memories forged in childhood.

My brother and Dad decided it was time to leave when snowflakes started hitting the windows with an icy hiss. Their car is old and the drive long in the fading light of November days. I placed a bag filled to the top with leftover food in their backseat, and then offered to help Dad make his way out. “No,” my brother said, “We have our system down pat.” My brother does a magnificent job of hovering without being noticed by my dad’s pride, whereas I tend towards full-on mothering.  I throw out too many, “Be careful’s!” and too many, “Let me help’s.” Dad doesn’t want that.

He straightens himself once again and depends on his cane to manage the step down from the front door and onto the sidewalk. I once again give him the odd half-hug and mummer “I love you.” He nods.  “Will I see you at Christmas?” he says. I look into those brown eyes that have seen so much over eight decades.

“I pray I will, Dad. I pray I will.”