A New Start

    The holidays are coming up. With the holidays always comes the non-stop motion of it all. The food, the travel, it feels like we're moving at the speed of light, and we simply can't stop or we might explode. Or at least that's how I feel right now.  It's all pretty overwhelming. Even with all that jazz, there is something to be said for the even the smallest things remind me of mom. 
    Mom would always do the cooking for thanksgiving at our house, usually with some help here and there from me. This is our first holiday season without mom, and I know I'm in for a doozy. Aside from the the turkey and the green bean casserole, I will be doing most of the thanksgiving cooking this year. I feel as though I am up to the task, but it will be quite a bit of work. I work thanksgiving morning at my job (by choice of course) and then its back to the house to work on all the other things. The one thing that intimidated me the most about this upcoming holiday meal, was the Pumpkin Pie. You see in our family, it didn't matter any other food that was served at thanksgiving, there has to be pie. Mom's pie. While I know the recipe to this pie and have helped mom make it every year for decades, it still scares me. Why you ask? Well because it is easily the most important part of our holiday meals. I don't want to mess it up, or have my family tell me it's not the same. 
    So this morning I set out to make a practice pie. And I did, and it was pretty good. Tasted almost identical to mom's. But some how it still tasted wrong. I didn't know why. It was cooked all the way through, and I had made it the same way I remember mom making it in years before. I didn't even burn the crust which is something my mom never could get down. So why did it taste not quite right. That's when I finally said to my dad "it tastes sad".  Well it probably tastes sad because it's not my mom's pumpkin pie, and it never will be again. It's my pie now, and it will continue to be my pie, and I'm going to have to keep tweaking the recipe and making it my own. It's strange what things make grief pop up, like a little weasel, unwelcome and seemingly out of place.
    That's just it now, it's not mom's pie anymore, and that broke my heart. It's my pie recipe now. A new start and some new tradition, one that I have to take ownership of. Something I realize I can't ask her for help with. Now I know this weird extended metaphor about pie is starting to get absurd, but it's true. So many of the things I used to do with my mom are now mine to do either alone or with someone else; someone not mom. I have to make my own traditions, my own tweaks to recipes, my own holiday joy. While I'm not doing these things alone, it sure does feel lonely. 
    I mentioned in one of my previous posts  that grief is just love with nowhere to go, which I think is a great description. However I think I'm slowly finding places to put all that love. I try to put that love and passion into my work. I try to funnel it towards my friends, my coworkers, my family. Sometimes like tonight it manifests in me doing things like watching my coworkers perform in their fall musical. I was a theatre kid, I know how much work they put into that show. I got to see both of their passion as well as their entire ensemble's. After the show I made sure to tell them "I love you appropriately" and how much I enjoyed their show, and I couldn't help but think of the comfort it gave me to know that I could be in their corners the same way my mom, my friends, and my family have been. Grief is hard. Life gets a little weird sometimes but I'm surely grateful for the time I'm spending doing the things that matter.