Thanks for giving

You died in April, but I always remember you at Thanksgiving. I remember learning to cook, not at my mother's side, for cooking was a chore for her, but at my brother's, where it was a joy. I learned to be fearless and go forth without a recipe, that garlic is required for everything worth eating, that spices and herbs had to be fresh to be worth it. I watched your hands--my hands, writ larger, down to the chewed fingernails and torn cuticles--confident with a knife, prepping, prepping, endless prepping. You were so confident with your knife (and you had only one, a large chef's, honed and forbidden to all but you, and then, when I had proven my worth, me) that you would look up as you sliced, diced, chopped, and chatted, paused, swigged from your beer. Your skills and practice learned from short-term jobs in various kitchens but even more from late night munchy fests with friends in the industry--3 a.m. London broil with a strangely delightful zesty tomato gravy, "potato nachos" with sliced yukons baked crisp, topped with bacon, bechamel, and dill. The foods were a wonderland, an escape, and you wrote your heart onto your steak, your homemade teriyaki sauce, your gorgeous salads with frisee (what the fuck is that, I asked? It looks like mermaid hair, or a weed nearly gone seedy! We eat that?). You did not sit to eat with your guests, but served, and then watched, so vulnerable, as we took our first bites. I think your mood, and your alcohol intake, was as tied to that first bite as to any chemical combination in your body. Your decline became real to me the day we stood side by side in Mom's kitchen, my son alternately entertaining and annoying Dad, and I watched your gnarled, scarred hands shake. Unbelievably shake. You tried to peel carrots, and gauged them into ugly, pitted cylinders of orange, and you sliced them into hunks and pieces, not uniform sticks, not neat concentric circles. You didn't want to help determine the recipes; you had no idea or desire around the beautiful fresh halibut; the potatoes Duchesse brought you no joy. There are many ways to see the decline in a loved one caught up in an addiction, but this way, this way, this downward spiral where the preparation of and beautiful nourishment for family and friends, this way, brother, broke my heart long before you left us for good. So when I cook for my family, when we gather at friends' houses and break bread, when I look down to see my gnarled, scarred and bitten hands prepping, prepping, endless prepping, I am grateful for the joy you taught me, nurtured in me, left with me to tend; there was no room for it in your sorrow, and I am sorry you cannot stand next to me in this world anymore. But I am thankful, so profoundly thankful, for the time, the gusto, the love, the memories so filled with sensory depth I cannot chop parsley without your ghost hovering, laughing,"You've got the good knife, now, sis, you don't have to hack at it."

Kidletting with two is different. And I don't know if I've said it enough, but the huz is the very last link between me and sanity. This thought comes to me as the huz and the Squid prepare to leave me with Nubbins while they flit about the midwest, scaring themselves silly on roller coasters. What I keep pondering, while I wonder if I can successfully keep the one left to me alive, is how anyone does it either as a single parent in status or in effect (you all know someone who really does have to do it all, gets no help from the co-habitating parent--that's who I mean by in effect). The latter is the case I'm thinking of today. And while the willingness of the unhelper comes into play a great deal, so also does the control freakdom of the put-upon main laborer. In the cases where the unhelper would be willing to assist, to watch the kid(s) while the 24/7 on duty parent-bot took a walk, a hot tub, a night out, I've seen a remarkable number of the parent-bots unable to let them. And I see in this a dangerous parenting style that started long before the child(-ren) came along. If you can't trust the other parent, an adult, to Do the Right Thing with your combined DNA-gone-wild, how the hell are you gonna let go and let the kid become who s/he needs to be? The same mom who "lets" dad feed the children, anxiously hovering in the background to offer advice and who, ultimately, ends up taking over because it's not being done "right" will be the one packing for this child for his first semester of college. Pops'll get the kid fed. It may be messier. It may involve a melt-down, if a certain ritual is not followed. And Pops can deal with that, too. Amazingly, kids who get parented (really, daily stuff, the little things like learning to deal with disappointment at the dinner table to the zoo trip) learn more about how to behave. And the parent-bot can more quickly become a human adult instead of a slave-to-the-child martyr. It's hard, really hard, in it's own way. I battle every day with my control freak impulses with both children's interactions with Huz, since I of course have the whole path laid out with primroses and college degrees. But when I convince myself to step back, as I am (preen!) often successful at doing, I find he's doing something *differently than I would have* and . . . . oh, pride, watch your step! ooops . . . often better. I've found that letting the Huz fully into the process means it's (slightly) easier for me to let Squid grow into himself without me getting into the way, because I'm not under the illusion that I am his formative influence. So for those who go it alone not because they have to, nor because their co-parent doesn't want to, please back off the Type A schtick and let Parent B have a go. You'll have a happier kid, and many more opportunities for cocktails, along the way.