I recently saw a Facebook post regarding a condolence note that President Elect Joe Biden sent to the family of former North Carolina Senator Kay Hagan after she passed away in 2019. In that note Biden wrote that one day the memories would once again bring smiles before the tears and in that moment the Hagan family would know that they were going to be okay. That sentiment has been on my mind and heart a lot these past few weeks as I marked the four year anniversary of Mom’s passing and prepare for the upcoming holidays. Especially this week as I begin to prepare my grandmother’s dressing for Thanksgiving.
My mother died on a Monday in October. Those first few months I lived in a fog, but I very clearly remember waking up one morning a few days after Halloween in a panic—where was the dressing recipe? I know it seems ridiculous that in that moment at that time all I was focused on was a side dish for a holiday that no one in my family was looking forward to celebrating, but it was more than just a side dish. This was my grandmother’s recipe and for 44 of my 45 years, it had been served at every Thanksgiving and sometimes Christmas, but never any other time of year. Thanksgiving 2000 when we celebrated the holiday and my parents’s 30th anniversary in New York City was the only year when we did not have the dressing. Even one year when my parents were going to be in NYC with friends for Thanksgiving, we celebrated before they left town and of course, had the dressing. So it was more than a side dish, it was a part of my family. A part of my history. And at a time when I felt like I had lost so much, I needed that side dish to be on the table.
Growing up my Granny always made the dressing and whether she made the dressing at her house beforehand or prepared it at our house, she always made the dressing by herself and Mom was not allowed to help. I think a few years before my Granny died, Mom may have finally been allowed to chop an onion or the celery, but nothing else. Maybe that’s why, after my grandmother passed away and my mother started making the dressing, I was never allowed to make it. But my grandmother had given my mother the recipe and unfortunately, Mom had not given it to me.
So that is why ,in a panic in early November a few weeks after Mom died, I broke into my parents’ house and searched for the recipe. And I felt such an odd combination of relief and sadness when I found it, that I sat on the floor in their kitchen and cried for an hour!
But like most really good family recipes, it is a vague, incomplete recipe. The kind without exact measurements; the kind that is perfected only after years of trial and error. So now I had the recipe, but I wasn’t sure what to do with it. With only a few days left to the holiday, I researched cooking websites and all my cookbooks to fill in the gaps and started doing trial runs of the dressing until I got it right. This was one of the darkest times of my life. I had never been so sad, angry or depressed in my life, but the dressing gave me something to focus on. Something I could control in a time when my life seemed out of control. I spent a lot of time in the kitchen those days talking to Mom, talking to Granny and praying to God. Although it was still a long road ahead of me, I think those days of baking cornbread and chopping onions and celery started my path to healing the heartbreak.
And then the emails, texts, and Facebook posts started coming in. “Praying for you and your dressing” they all read. From my dearest friends that had celebrated my highest highs and were now supporting me during my lowest low. I do not doubt that this was the most prayed upon pan of dressing in the history of the world! To pray for dressing may seem like a ridiculous prayer to some, but to me it is the greatest prayer of all. It so easy to be a good friend when times are good. Although it’s sometimes harder to know what to say or do when times are bad, the truth is those are often times when it’s easier to remember to pray for our friends and family. But in the days and weeks to follow and in the days between the highs and lows, those are the days you need someone to pray for the ordinary, the everyday tasks, the ridiculous things that get you through life, the things that seem so small to anyone else. Those are the days you need to someone to pray for your dressing.
This Thanksgiving will be my fifth year making the dressing. I always talk to Granny and Mom when I make it and I always shed a few tears (and not just because of the onions). But just like Joe Biden told the Hagan family, now smiles of the memories of Thanksgivings past come before the tears and before I put the pan in the oven for an hour at 350 degrees, I also say a prayer of thanks to God for bringing friends in my life who pray for me in good times and bad and for the friends that pray for me when I just need a pray for my dressing. And as I think of each and every one of those friends, I say a little prayer for whatever is the dressing in their life too.
Buddha, Bee and Me 