On Thanksgiving Day 2003 I took a taxi from my new home in Folkestone to my mum and dad's house in Hythe to celebrate with turkey. It was a precarious journey as a car pulled out of a side road and forced my driver off the road and onto the pavement. Thank God no one was walking there. I had only moved out of home the previous summer. Mum thought it would be nice to have Thanksgiving Day dinner at home. It was a lovely evening with a fine crown and good fun. It is 1 of my happy memories of mum.
Over the next 7 years her mental health deteriorated badly. The final time I ate turkey with her was at Christmas in 2010. She had always suffered from abnormal anxiety. Most of my life she was unhappy if not depressed. By 2010 she also was creeping into dementia. It was not the happiest Christmas. She cooked the crown of turkey for 11 hours as she was convinced we would all get food poisoning. The following year she would experience the first such event without either of us there since we were born. She never saw another Christmas.
I have spent too much of my life regretting and second guessing and asking why. I cannot change my past, I wasn't there so we were not together. But on this day I remember that happy Thanksgiving all those years ago.
To all my friends in the USA-and there are many of you-may I wish you a very happy Thanksgiving. I have no turkey-bit much living on my own-but I am watching Green Bay and Detroit and trying to work out how in the world the Lions aren't up by about 40 points!
I Heard a Voice.
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