Week #18 of My Liquid Diet: Un-Thanksgiving
Hold my sides.
The trimmings:
Beginning weight (July 14): 230 lbs.
Weight at Start of Week #2: 222
Weight at Start of Week #3: 218.4
Weight at Start of Week #4: 215.3
Weight at Start of Week #5: 215.1
Weight at Start of Week #6: 211.2
Weight at Start of Week #7: 208.1
Weight at Start of Week #8: 204.3
Weight at Start of Week #9: 201.9
Weight at Start of Week #10: 199
Weight at Start of Week #11: 196.8
Weight at Start of Week #12: 194.4
Weight at Start of Week #13: 193.5
Weight at Start of Week #14: 190.2
Weight at Start of Week #15: 185.6
Weight at Start of Week #16: 183.8
Weight at Start of Week #17: 182.3
Weight at Start of Week #18: 179.4
Weight at Start of Week #19 (current week): 177.6
Total weight loss so far: 52.4 lbs.
Twelve weeks to go.
Happy Thanksgiving (or as my wife calls it, “Random Thursday"), to all who celebrate! It will be kind of awkward this year for me and my family, as I am in the midst of this liquid diet. Alas, the weight-management program I’m on didn’t offer liquefied turkey as a seasonal meal replacement — and we’re still weeks away from the reintroduction of starchy foods, not to mention sweets. Good gravy (not)!
Thanksgiving was always a sensitive subject with my mother, Bunny, ever since her own mother, my Grandma Dora, died on that day in 1968. This wasn’t due purely to her grief; it was also because she’d spent her adult life in a near-constant state of rage at Dora (for reasons I’ve described in an earlier post). So when I was sharing a Thanksgiving meal with Mom a few years ago at the Selfhelp Home in Chicago, I tried adjusting my expression as I said “Happy Thanksgiving!” to indicate that I knew this usually cheerful phrase was, at best, bittersweet for her: a reminder of how Dora, though 50 years gone, still remained a looming, even terrifying specter. So imagine my surprise when she didn’t respond with any sort of emotion — no grimace of resentment, no sad, contemplative shaking of her head, nothing.
At first I assumed that she was just holding the turmoil deep inside her. My mom, a librarian and writer, was in many ways a closed book to me. This was in total contrast to my late father, Paul, who wore his enormous heart on his sleeve. As a child, I whiplashed back and forth between my divorced parents, who were so opposite in temperament and yet united in their determination to win the fight for my allegiance. It was, for years, a constant battle, and I was the spoils. It was a lot more fun to be with Dad — and, later, his second wife, Sue, and their three beautiful children — in his lively, raucous household than with my mom, who liked her apartment to be library-quiet, except when she had on listener-sponsored WBAI-FM or was playing a Judy Collins record. (When I was little, her mantra was: “Children are meant to be seen and not heard.”) I gradually spent more and more time with Paul and Sue, until, as a teen, I basically moved in with them, seeing Bunny only rarely. Mom didn’t seem particularly bothered by my extended absences; in fact, she’d lately taken to asking me to make myself scarce when she brought home a date: “I don’t want them to know I’m old enough to have a teenage son.” And yet I wonder whether this felt like a rejection to her. I mean, you’d think it would! Looking back, I sense in my younger self an unconscious longing for Mom to have continued to fight for me, even have begged for my allegiance — to have given some indication that she needed me, in the same way that I always knew that Dad did. But I wasn’t the main throughline in her life story. She had two great antagonists: her late mother and her ex-husband. There was no room for another, younger protagonist — even her only son.
Sitting across the table from my mom in the Selfhelp dining room as plates of rabbi-blessed turkey, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce were distributed to the residents and their guests, I continued examining her face for signs of remembered wrongs. But if anything she looked … content. Placid.
After we’d eaten in silence for a while, she said: “Tell me, was your father at all involved in your upbringing?”
I have never been as shaken by a question as I was by that one. Mom vs. Dad was the main event of my childhood; you could say it defined me. As far back as I can recall, my dad would regularly recite the tale of how bitter their custody battle had been; how he’d fought for me; how hard it was for a father to win custody. In my early years, each time he’d drop me back off at my mom’s — usually late — they would still be yelling at each other long after I’d gone to my bedroom to huddle in my bed and wait out the parental storm. (They eventually arrived at an uneasy détente.)
I said, “Uh, yes. He was very involved. Don’t you remember?”
Mom shook her head. “What I remember is raising you as a single mom.”
That’s when it hit me. Her memories — including her entire recollection of her epic struggles with my father — were fading away. Their battle over me — which had, in large part, formed my initial understanding of the world, and of my place in it — was finally over. For the combatants, at least.
Then, as I watched her take a sip of sparkling apple cider, the other shoe dropped. I realized why she hadn’t reacted to me saying “Happy Thanksgiving!” It wasn’t just because she probably didn’t remember that her mother had died on Thanksgiving. She didn’t remember that she hated her mother.
That long-burning antipathy, which had driven her into countless therapy sessions, through nine-plus decades of frantically seeking the adoration and acclaim that she hadn’t received as a child, was no longer encoded in her neural circuitry. It was no longer part of who she was.
But she was still her. She was still my mom. Still Bunny.
It was time for dessert. Pumpkin pie! Incredibly weak coffee!
How could Mom and I still be us without that history, all those experiences of struggle and strife — not just the loud ones between her and Dad, and her and Grandma, but the quiet ones between her and me? I spent much of my adult life hiding from her. Until her last few years, being with my mother was the hardest thing in the world for me to do. We’d sit together in a room, but I didn’t think she really saw me, or knew me. I’d count the minutes till I could escape. Our conversations were halting, strained. Or at least they felt that way to me. Mom would maintain, throughout our encounters, a serene smile. And when it mercifully came time for me fly back home to the Bay Area, she’d say, “This was a perfect visit!” And I’d think, Where in the world is she coming from?
After that Thanksgiving, though, something shifted in me. Expecting less, I got more from her. And towards the end, each time, in her bed up on the Skilled Nursing floor, she saw me enter the room, her face, thinned by disease, would light up in a smile of pure love. And I’d smile back at her with the same pure love. Which must always have been there, right? It can’t have come from nowhere. Which means that our powerful, pure love for each other, all those years, had somehow been impeded by our fears and resentments and jealousies. We’d been cruel to each other, even though we loved each other. Which was wrong. Which shouldn’t have happened. Which made us both hurt.
For the blessed times when — sometimes despite ourselves — we get the opportunity to connect to others with uncomplicated kindness and joy, I most sincerely give thanks.
Wow. 🥹
Wow, Josh.