Day # 23

Most of my childhood holiday memories are of shifting between two places for the holidays.  The day after I graduated high school I left home only to be taken in by my husband's grandparents.  His Grandmama wasn't your average, sweet, fragile grandmother.  She had spunk and was as honest as the day was long.  If you got a hair cut and she didn't like it...she would tell you.  If you got two helpings of dessert...she would tell you exactly where on your body that dessert was going to land.  She was brutally honest at times but at others she was the mother I needed. 
She loved most to cook for her family, especially at the holidays.  She invited me into her kitchen so many years ago to help her prepare the holiday meal for her family, teaching me her ways of setting the table, arranging dishes, etc.  It was a task I didn't take lightly and every holiday after that I was her comrade in arms. Every holiday, dancing around each other in the kitchen, smiling with pride as everyone settled into their over flowing plates of food.  Grandaddy would come in to carve the ham or turkey and he would slip me a piece that "didn't look that good" and we would laugh with our cheeks full of meat while Grandmama yelled at us for sneaking.  We both cried the morning she handed me the electric knife to carve the turkey after Grandaddy passed away a few weeks before Thanksgiving.
 
I came to cherish that time, just with her, in the kitchen doing what she loved best.  It reminded me of being in the kitchen with my Granny as a child, helping her cook.  My Granny was more advanced in age when I became an adult but she instilled the love of cooking in me at an early age and it was nice to get to continue that on with Grandmama.  It is especially hard now, going to her home, empty and cold, preparing the table settings and the food with out her there.  This is only the second holiday without her and I am finding that I am missing her terribly.  We didn't always have the best relationship, but we were always smiling and laughing together in the kitchen for the holidays.  So today I am most thankful for all those years, all the holidays I got to spend with Grandmama in the kitchen, just us two.