The season of holidays is now upon us and families prepare for feasts and reunions that go along with these holiday seasons. I'm so deeply afraid that the young people today don't follow those traditions as our parents did and we tried to do. As I have gotten older it is harder to make the trips to see my family, but somehow I endeavor to try at least once a year to make contact with those still living in my family.
I came from a large and loving family from both sides of my parents and if you've ever seen me in the last few years you'll understand when I say that they were some of the greatest cooks I have ever known.I can't help myself I love the style of the southern cooking ladies that made up the chefs of my family.
I know I have told you all the stories of trying to make the buttermilk biscuits or the turkey and dressing with giblet gravy. that brought me to tears when I finally discovered how to make them taste as my family had made them taste when I was just a child. The flavors the smells and yes even the arguments that seem to happen every year are some of my fondest memories of my mother and father's family and of my mother and father.
You can say what you will about them but my family was not wealthy and they may not have been prim and proper all the time, after all they came from a long lineage of indentured servants and farmers that travel to this country as early as the 1620s. What my family did have was a strong and abundant love for family. Family always came first in our house when I was a child and the love shown to me was extremely great and fulfilling to one so young.
I feel the sadness come over me every year in October because that's when I lost my mother and a lot of my family, but that sadness did not come this year. The tears that I cry each October did however come but as I remarked to a very dear friend who lost their mother just a day ago. This time when the tears came they came with overwhelming joy knowing how much my mother loved me knowing how much my family love me no matter how much of a pain I seem to be to them. I have learned that these silly little things that sparked the memories that made me sad were not put in my life to make me sad they were put in my life to remember who I am and where I came from. They were put in my life help me remember my mother and my family.
This holiday season I am hoping that you have family surrounding you with love and I hope that your family remembers that our time with them is growing short. I, as you, am the patriarch of my family, that you tell your children and your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren how much you love them and that when you're gone and they remember you because of some silly little thing, that the memory that comes flooding to their mind is not there to make them sad it's put their to remind them that you walk with them side by side and you are still with them in their heart. These memories that they will carry with them the rest of their lives are not sad memories but happy memories of the magic of the love that you and they made for each other