Food

In my childhood Thanksgiving morning was spent with a tall glass of milk and an entire package of graham crackers. I remember submerging the cracker in the milk and allowing it to become so soggy that when I removed it there was no way of telling whether I would lose half the cracker to the depths of the glass or actually manage to get it into my mouth. The taste of milk on a chilly morning while smelling the sweet scent of my mother's pumpkin candles created a beautiful environment of joy on Thanksgiving morning.

My two younger brothers would take their share of crackers and milk and together the three of us would successfully (in less than an hour) mess up my mother's freshly cleaned table(which had taken several hours to clean). The soggy crackers would cake onto the tiles of the kitchen table with a vengeance, and, no matter how hard we tried, nothing short of the toughest sponge would remove the residue of crackers and milk.

As the afternoon rolled around my brothers and I would hide in our room trying our best to avoid working on the house in preparation of the company coming for dinner. We would wait impatiently for dinner and the cold bottle of Martinelli's apple cider, while not helping in any way, shape, or form. We would hide in the closet, outside, and in any other place our older brothers or our parents were not.

My brothers and I would eat, truly, all day and all night. Enjoying every bite of turkey made by my mother's expert hands and every bit of apple pie artfully crafted by my sister. The food, though it hit us hard as bedtime rolled around, was a tasty memory in our lives and one we tried to replicate every year.

Now, I await dinner knowing that the majority of it will not touch my lips. I know that milk will put my stomach into a frenzy, that stuffing will do much the same, and Martinelli's is most definitely off limits. I enjoy a mild shake of gluten free, weight gaining, banana flavored protein powder mixed in a vitamixer with almond milk and how ever much yogurt I can tolerate for breakfast and know without a doubt that lunch won't be much better.

Perhaps I remember wrongly. Perhaps I remember badly. Perhaps the memories were not of food, but of something infinitely more important...

Memories of my mother's tireless work, my brothers' abnormal happiness, and my father's attempt to cancel the dinner at every turn. Perhaps it was not so much the food that made such great memories, but those that I spent the day with. I am thankful indeed for the memories, memories not of binge eating... but, of my beautiful family and the many hours of happiness spent with them on Turkey day.