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."