Thanksgiving

Dear Dad,

We had an incredible weekend. It was so much fun. But it still didn’t detract from how much I miss you. I can’t believe this is our second Thanksgiving without you and if anything I missed you more this year, not less.

Mom had Thanksgiving and worked incredibly hard to make it nice, but there isn’t anything in the world that can compensate for your absence. G3 and I drove into Queens early on Thursday morning. (Kati went to visit her mother.) Middle Gary was already at Mom’s. It’s just so unbelievably sad to arrive and not have you there to greet us at the back door. To not see you throw your arms open wide and envelop G3 in a hug. But Mom was there and she smiled to see us and she gave us both long hugs. I’m sure she was missing you even more than I was. How many years did the two of you get up on Thanksgiving morning and start preparing for the day together? Mom spent all week cooking, but the job is so much more taxing on her now than it used to be. You aren’t there to drive her to the stores and pick up the supplies she needs. I appreciate all she did, but I told her she doesn’t need to cook all that food anymore. She doesn’t need to go all out. I would rather she rest more and sit with us in the living room. Visiting with each other would be more valuable than eating a large extensive feast. It’s only the four of us now, she can keep is simple.

Of course her food was amazing. I ate too much as I always do. The lasagna and the vegetables were my favorite. You’d be proud of G3. He is keeping up your tradition of making crumb cake for the holidays. He even made an apple pie for Thanksgiving so that his grandmother had one less thing to worry about. Mom used to make pecan pie for you because it was the only pie you liked, and it was my favorite too. But I’ll eat apple and everyone else does as well, so I think this may be G3’s new job. He woke up on Wednesday looking forward to a half a day of classes and a full afternoon of baking.

Much of our conversation with Middle Gary revolved around Boy Scouts. It was something to connect G2 and G3. G3 was excited to tell his uncle that he is working on his Astronomy merit badge. It will be his first one. After dinner, Middle Gary sat down with G3 to review and explain some of the requirements with him. You’d have been so happy to see the two of them together. Middle Gary went into great detail regarding facts about the moon and planets. He too is fascinated by the Universe. I’m glad he took the time to give his nephew some attention.

On Friday morning, we woke up super early to drive north into Massachusetts for a weekend of connecting and reconnecting with family. I had emailed your cousin (also my cousin) Anna to let her know that we were going to be in the area and to see if she’d be up for a visit. She seemed excited about it. We had only every seen her once before but it is so comfortable being with her, it’s like I’ve known her my whole life. G3 brought her a quarter of the crumb cake. She has heard the story of its importance to you and G3 so many times, it only seemed right to bring her some. We stayed at her placed and chatted for awhile, catching up, and then we drove to her son Scott’s house to meet him and his wife. Anna ordered take out for lunch, and as we ate, we got to know them. Oh Dad, it would have warmed your heart and made you smile to see Scott interacting with G3. After lunch, he invited G3 out into the barn to play corn hole. G3 had so much fun; he was excited and happy while they played. When Scott learned that G3 was interested in horror stories and that he is interested in history, he gave him a book that contained true haunted stories about Gettysburg. G3 couldn’t wait to read them and on the long drive home today he started the book. Scott and his wife have a dog, so you know that also made G3 happy. Hopefully, we’ll get to see them again because it was such a pleasurable experience. Of course, the whole time we were there, I kept thinking about how much you would have enjoyed being there with us. Meeting them was the one thing you desperately wanted in your latter years. It’s unfair that you died before it could happen. You always joked that Germans were cold people. But you never were. You didn’t fit the stereotype. Your family doesn’t either. They are some of the warmest people I’ve met.

We stayed for several hours and then we headed over to Kati’s cousins house. We got there in time for dinner. Silvia is also a warm and friendly person, as is her daughter. G3 was thrilled to meet his second cousin. They actually met when he was a baby and she was five years old, but he was too little to remember and so it was like meeting her for the first time. They seemed to get along well, considering the age difference. She played ping-pong with him and taught him how to play cribbage. He’s never really had cousins even remotely close in age to connect with, so this was a wonderful experience for him. 

You’d be so proud of G3. After a fun dinner of making our pizzas via a pizza bar, G3 did the dishes. No one asked him to. When he finished eating, he walked up to the sink and started cleaning.

Silvia set all day Saturday aside to do whatever we wanted. G3 told me, “It’s not that I don’t appreciate going to all the places you take me, but do you think we could do something in science, instead of history? Like maybe a museum?” Sigh. How could I object, especially since he has to deal with having a subpar science teacher. I did some research and settled on the Harvard Museum of Natural History. He really liked the one in New York when you took him, so I figured that would be a good place to go. But first, we slipped in a bit of history.

We started Saturday at the Wayside Inn. It was there, many years ago, that Longfellow stopped and heard visitors chatting with each other and telling stories. These tales inspired one of his books of poetry. Near-by there is also an old mill that is rather scenic, and so we used it for our Christmas card photoshoot.

Did you know that in Boston there is a place called Castle Island, and on this Island there is a fort? It was here in 1827, that a young man name Edgar Allan Poe was stationed when he joined the army. While there, he learned of a legend about two military men that didn’t get along. As was common in that time, when people had a disagreement, it resulted in a duel. The soldier whom few people liked killed the man whom everyone loved. According to the legend, to get revenge, the men sealed the killer in a wall of the fort. If this sounds familiar, it’s because you might have read a similar story titled “The Cask of Amontillado.” For years, there was no proof this legend was real. Quite the contrary. It appears the man allegedly sealed in the wall lived long enough to retire and collect a pension. However, during renovations in 1905, workers discovered a skeleton clothed in military garb and chained to a casement inside the fort. Perhaps, there was some truth to the legend after all. When I mentioned to Silvia that I did a short unit about Poe with G3 last year, a unit that included “The Cask of Amontillado,” she insisted on taking us to the fort. I’m glad she did. It makes Poe’s story all the more fascinating. There is also a statue of Poe in Boston. I had no idea it existed, so Silvia drove us to see it as well. It is cool statue, with Poe’s cape fluttering behind him and a giant raven perched on his suitcase.  

G3 enjoyed wandering through the museum. Skeletons of dinosaurs and stuffed animals enthralled him the most. We found the hyrax which he had researched and written about last year. And we each saw our favorite animal — turtle, tiger, and mountain goat. When we finished wandering that museum we wandered over to the Peabody Museum of Archeology. It was apparent, as we traversed the exhibits, that G3 has a far more competent social studies teacher. Much of what we saw was familiar to him either because we’ve read about it or watched a documentary about it.

When we got back to the house, we played games and told stories — mostly about travel. You know me, I could go on for hours with my travel stories. 

This morning, we didn’t want to leave, but alas, all good things must end. We will hopefully have a chance to see Silvia and her daughter again. Maybe, if things work out, we’ll go whitewater rafting in the spring. Traffic coming home was insane. It took us six hours. (It only took four on the way up.) And when we got home, we discovered the heat isn’t working. It’s 51 degrees in the house and I am shivering as I write. I can’t even feel my fingertips any more.

I miss you!