Today I am thinking about my Mom and how much she liked Thanksgiving because my Mom, me and my husband Paul would all go to Old Country Buffet to eat and to celebrate. My Mom loved to eat and she loved ‘Ol Country’ as she called it. She would go up to the food bars and fill her plate to the edges with fried chicken and beef ribs, which were her favorite thing to eat. I would watch her as she was walking up to fill her plate and I would see how happy she was. She could barely contain herself. When Mom was walking back to the table with her full plate I was afraid she might trip or bump into to someone since Mom had trouble walking straight. Fortunately, she always made it back to the table without spilling a thing. While my Mom was eating she would not say a word. She was in her glory and enjoying herself so much, that she could barely notice our presence. But Paul and I didn’t care. We were happy she was enjoying herself and experiencing pleasure, which was something she rarely experienced in her adult life. After, dinner she would go up for dessert and again her plate was full of cake and especially vanilla soft ice cream. We would feel so sick after we ate so much and my Mom would say that “we are never going to do that again!”
Sometimes, way back in the day, I would have trouble going out to eat with my Mom. I would feel so embarrassed to go in the dining room at Ol Country” and sit in the middle of the room because my Mom would be pretty messy when she ate. Unfortunately, and tragically when my Mom was in the hospital, she lost all of her teeth. I don’t know whether it was from lack of good dental treatment or if she had a gum disease.. Anyway, she tried dentures, however they hurt her gums, so she decided not to wear any. This made it difficult for her to eat and she would sometimes get a mess on her shirt. Some times because of this, I would feel so embarrassed that people were staring at us when we were eating and my anxiety antennae” went up. I would want to hide all of us away so no one would be able to see us. To help with this, we would sit in the back in the corner. I never knew if my Mom knew that this was the reason that we always sat in the back in a booth. I’m telling this story because now that I think about it, it really seems so trivial and seems to be so insignificant. As I mentioned in About This Blog, I struggled with sorrow, fear and embarrassment because my Mom did look so disheveled at times. I would want to fix her up so neatly so people would not stare at us. Now that I think about all the times I was more concerned about our appearance than enjoying ourselves, I realize how sad it was for me and my Mom. In the last years I had been overcoming my sorrow, embarrassment and social anxiety relating to my Mom, and it was feeling so good to just enjoy our selves. In the end, I did not care what people did or how they stared, so much that I hardly noticed it. I was so happy to be with my Mom however she was and I was so proud of her. I was proud of how strong she was and how she had overcome so much in her life that any bad feelings were just fading away.
Now when I realize that my Mom will not be here to enjoy ‘Ol Country” and the beef ribs she loved so much, I feel so sad that it fills my heart with the sorrow that I had been trying to overcome. I think about how silly it was to care about what other people thought. What I am learning from this experience is that it doesn’t really matter what other people's opinions are if they are not significant or meaningful in your life. All of us have struggles and oddities and now when I think of my Mom, I don’t ever think about how she had no teeth or that she was a messy eater. I think of the joy on her face when she was happy, eating. I think of the anticipation she had just waiting to get to the resturaunt. I think about Thanksgiving and the meaning of this holiday. It’s about being thankful and grateful for the people you love and those who love you. It’s about having my Mom who I loved so much and being thankful for the time I had with her. So, as we approach Thanksgiving I am reminded to be thankful for all of those I love and for the life I have.
No comments:
Post a Comment