The Family’s Been in the Recipe for Years

The telephone rang three times before my father offered a groggy hello.

It was a little before 10 a.m., but he had nodded off. I knew he was using the portable phone, and I could picture him leaning back in the big adjustable recliner with the magic fingers that hum and massage from head to heel. Mom bought it a few months ago because Dad, his heart playing tricks at age 79, has been having so much trouble sleeping.

I was just wondering when Thanksgiving dinner would be served. He put Mom on the phone.

This would be a simple Thanksgiving, that I already knew. We wouldn’t be having a big feast with friends; we wouldn’t even have all the family there. Unlike so many other holidays in recent years, we wouldn’t be going to my brother’s mother-in-law’s. My brother Dusty and his wife, Nancy, would drop by early, but on this Thanksgiving in the little postwar tract home on Catalina Avenue in Santa Ana, there would just be Mom and Dad, my sister Linda and me.

A simple Thanksgiving, but this time the sense of gratitude was more acute. The day before, Dad had come home after five days in the Long Beach VA hospital, his latest “episode,” as a doctor called it. Now he’s taking 11 pills a day.

For several months now the diagnosis has been congestive heart failure, a phrase that seems to imply imminent doom. A lawyer friend has comforted me with the tale of a client who received the same diagnosis. Some 15 years ago, he prepared her will. Now, she’s in her 90s, making the heirs wait.

Sounds good to me.

Copious emotion isn’t our family’s style. Maybe it has something to do with being a military family, a Marine family. Maybe not. In the intensive care unit last Saturday, before the rest of the family arrived, I tried to make jokes as Dad lay hooked up to various tubes. And since willpower is said to matter, I just tried to remind him that, if he’s at all looking forward to the ultimate episode, I’m just not ready for that, not even close. (I figure he wouldn’t want to let me down.)

The blood tests offered good news. At least this episode wasn’t another heart attack, and so Dad would be home for Thanksgiving.

When I got there he was still in the recliner, watching football and wearing sweats that suggested he is a member of the U.S. Olympic team. We watched more football as Mom worked in the kitchen, preparing turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, string beans, cranberry sauce.

Soon we were at the dining table. Mom prefers a formal grace; we got Dad to recall one he learned from his father.

Bless the meeting,

Damn the skin,

Back your ears

And cram it in

“I don’t get it,” I told him later.

“Neither do I,” he replied. “It just rhymes.”

To Dad’s grace we added a rub-a-dub-dub, thanks for the grub, yay God! It rhymes, and I get it.

Later Dad returned to his recliner and Linda and I sat before him, resuming our epic Scrabble rivalry. Mom got on the phone to Alabama and we were all pleased to learn that Aunt Izetta’s boy Curly was doing fine; his body wasn’t rejecting the liver transplant. Then the phone rang and Mom announced that we’d soon be having visitors.

They’ve lived across the street forever, another Marine family that took root in these cookie-cutter homes when they were brand new and cost $14,000. It was a special Thanksgiving for this family too. Diane, the eldest sister among five siblings, was home after leukemia treatments; happily, her youngest sister is a perfect bone marrow match. Diane cheerfully reported that doctors have told her she has “a 60% chance for 100% recovery.”

Holiday gatherings often inspire these reunions. Some people have memories of growing up in big families or small towns. Some of us baby boomers remember entire childhoods, or close to it, in the same house on the same street. Whenever we go back to our parents’ homes, we’re still children.

A few years ago was I struck by how small these homes were in a neighborhood that teemed with kids. And only this year did I notice how the elms at curbside have grown too tall, soaring high above the homes. Every few months, a heavy limb crashes into the street.

Before long our neighbors were gone, and soon after I said goodbye too, to catch a movie with an old friend. He has no family nearby, due to two divorces and the deaths of two children. He prefers to work on Thanksgiving, but this day he wasn’t scheduled. He had declined invitations from friends and had chosen to dine alone at a fancy restaurant. The meal, he said, was delicious.

That night, as I drove back to Los Angeles, I found it easy to give thanks.

Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursday and Sundays. Readers may write to Harris at the Times Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth 91311. Please include a phone number.