There were twelve around our Thanksgiving table in the mid-1960’s...

Mom was a great cook, and her roast turkey and baked ham were highly regarded in the family. One of the juicy tidbits of gossip that day was that cousin Gary, a preteen a year younger than me, didn’t like to eat meat. Back in those days it was one of the major food groups, and it was clear to all that Gary was going to waste away to nothing and never make it to adulthood if he didn’t change his ways.

Having two kinds of meat as well as green bean and onion casserole, corn, yam casserole with pecans, red Jell-O salad, hot rolls and mashed potatoes and gravy was a  lot for Mom to juggle in the shotgun kitchen. Not to mention appetizers of cream cheese and olives on Ritz and her legendary Heath Bar cake for dessert. But Mom seemed to handle all with aplomb. Rushing back and forth from the kitchen with my older sister Sheryl, she even made time to put little pieces of meat onto Gary’s plate, urging him “just to taste.”

Finally all were served at the table and Mom and Sheryl sat down. We dug into the wondrous feast. Suddenly, choruses of “euuuuu!” erupted as we kids tasted the mashed potatoes and gravy. Aunt Evelyn and our grandparents looked at each other, remarking in Swedish. Mom tasted too, and a funny look came over her face.There was something too sweet about the gravy, which as usual appeared to be thick with giblets. She jumped up and ran into the kitchen. Uh-oh. Mom realized she had stirred the broken-up pieces of Heath bars into the gravy, thinking they were giblets!

We all erupted into laughter and passed another bowl around the table in which to scrape the weird-tasting potatoes and gravy. More potatoes were passed, with butter to compensate. Yes, we had cake eventually, but without the rich toffee flavor of the Heath bars. And by then, Gary had succumbed to Mom’s delicious turkey

and ham. There was once again hope for his future.

What goes around, comes around: my youngest son, now in his first year at college, has decided to become a piscine (fish-eating) vegetarian!

This piece was first published in the Port Townsend/Jefferson County Leader, November 22nd, 2006.

feather flurry
bust the dust
worry hurry
energy gust
dress the festive table
arrange the flowers
place cards still to label 
I need more hours
for cranberry crush
yeast dough set to rise
drat! another hot flush
yikes!  don't forget the pies
turkey truss
potatoes mash
now do not cuss
this turkey dash
fill the water glasses
answer the knock at the door
find the liquor stashes
chairs, we’ll need one more
aroma of roast
perfumes the rooms
time for a toast
hostess still zooms
a flood of family laughter
fold hands in grace
wearily ever after
old memories race
across my mind
my mother’s tired face
her words so loving and kind
don’t eat in haste
remember to taste
the bounty of god’s design

Happy Thanksgiving to all my Gather Friends.

This is a revised post from 2007

Under sunny skies

Sorrow is mixed with joy

Emotion rains from my eyes

Our Reisl is no longer here

Oy! on this Rosh Hashanah day

Loss is pain yet new child we gained

Noa, our sunshine ray

For a better year we pray

Like those years before

When the world seemed right and sane

And recipes like these were baked with love

Before we knew that dreadful pain of saying goodbye

To mothers and brothers and family

But look, the dove still flies above me

And the honey cake is sweet

With new cycle to complete

Oh my, it's good to be alive

My dear mother-in-law, Rose, passed peacefully on September 13th at the honorable age of 90.  Sam and I were with her when she saw our children and grandchildren and kissed them goodbye.  Then we were holding her hands two days later as she drew her last breath.
Rose (birth name Reisl) came into my life in 1975.  I met her and my father-in-law, Hymie,  a few days before our wedding.  Their home was in Florida and Sam and I met, lived and married in California.
She was a survivor of Auschwitz and her strong persona was, according to my sister, the power that bent me into a rather reluctant submission to Rose as her dutiful daughter-in-law.  We remained in California and spent our yearly vacations in Florida with them, except when she and Hymie came to California.  My house was never so clean as when they arrived and while they stayed with us.  We did some traveling together as well as meeting in New York for family celebrations.  Still, the distance between us all made for an incomplete sense of connection as a family on a daily basis.
I was wary of the prospect of her coming to live with us five years ago.  She was living alone (as a widow) in Florida and her sister let us know that she wasn’t doing very well.  As soon as we saw her it was clear that she was ill and needed to be rescued.  I  knew it wouldn't be easy having the matriarch of the family in my house.  But we survived as did she.  In fact, Rose was thriving in less than a months time.  My husband and I both agreed that she would be happier if she had her own independence at a wonderful home for Jewish parents near our house.  She was on the waiting list for two months and then we moved her in.  Those five years flew as week by week our personal relationship grew into one of mutual respect and deep love.  She treated me lovingly as her own daughter.  This meant the world to me in the shadow of my own mother's death six months after Rose arrived.
I shared a memoir written some time ago (A Passover Remembered) at her funeral in Florida.  Today, an email from my daughter inspired the poem above and this post. The email included a page from a website that shares recipes for apple honey cake, rugelach, chocolate babka and an well written essay about the holiday.  Here is the link:MAKE
And shown below are the goodies that were on the table in Florida after her funeral where we were sitting Shivah.  Google the word to learn the Jewish ritual for grieving the passing of a family member.

Eternity defined by a Cave God

I feel the cave God,

his rough coldness under my palm.

The light has a small mouth

and through this stony intestine

one walks one hundred paces for it

but face to face it lacks the greatness.

A loose muscled woman sleeps

with her mouth open.

From this end the darkness is eternity.

Inside I felt otherwise.

A bat flies off the pristine maw.

It shared three cave minutes with me.

We changed each other by an imprecise unit.

©All Rights Are Reserved By Kushal Poddar, 2011 (written on 29^th August, 2011)

∞

We have a knob, the deep downstairs but no door.

A roof. And I watch me walking toward the house

down the road I walked before.

A bird on the next to our roof branch goes right into its fledgling;

some of its worms, real and others it imagines,

a father with small means and his child’s expanding intestine.

A road we walked before. We stop at the knob,

a secret code in our desire and other in our prayers.

A door materializes when we least need it.

We imagine the roof means sky. Sky means infinity.

Infinity, a mark on our math notebook;

we fail math exam at large.

©All rights are reserved by Kushal Poddar, 2011

Kay had to tend to family last week, and I was mostly offline, so you got a break. But I'm baaaaack.... 

And for the 1039th day, there was rain.

In 100 or fewer words, tell me when the rain will stop.

Use THREE of these: never -- gloom -- drown -- splash -- soggy -- lake -- foggy -- 2014 -- flood -- doom -- Thursday -- despair -- gray

... and oh yeah: make it funny.  (Okay, not really, but it couldn't hurt.)

=======================

Your story may be serious or lighthearted or as silly as you like just so long as it is 100 or fewer words.

I REMEMBER THE RAIN

FOR MY MOM

© 2011 by David Wainland

 100 words

I remember the times

when it rained

and it felt

like a thousand

thirty nine days

Mom said, stop being

gloomy, don’t despair

get out of the house

splash in puddles

go down to the lake

skim some stones

let your sneakers

become soggy

drown your tears

for the years

will pass to soon

one day it will

be 2014

you’ll be gray

foggy of mind

remember Thursday

precedes the end

never face your doom

without splashing

in a puddle

or pass a lake

without skimming stones

don’t count the days

Friday soon comes

remember the times

of your youth

He sent a gift for my birthday

In the form of an emailed card

I guess you could call it sand artistry

xxxxxxHe photographed his artistry

xxxxxxDesigned on this birthday

xxxxxxCreating a Santa Barbara card

He carved blue waves before he carved the card

Surfing a spiritual path to his artistry

Jesse pleased me with a seaweed birthday...

xxxxxxSimple sand castle of artistry and love on my birthday card

March 20, 1950, God took my mother to her rest

She was but forty two, so young

Never got to see her her grandchildren

Her life really had just begun

My children all think they know her

As I told them so many things she said

Her little reminders on how to behave

Have never left my head

I think I turned into my Mother

Couldn't believe it, but it was true

For I became just like her

Mimicking  things she used to do

What better pattern could I have had

For she was so courageous

She raised a family on her own

Her love was so contagious

I had a daughter of my own

I loved her more than life itself

She told me she was turning into me

Giving me a feeling of  great  wealth

Sixty one years ago today

I lost my very best friend

Before she left me, she made me strong

For I still have  her love that has no end

I still miss you Mother

The Psychology Books At The Bottom

Psychology

is kept under the bookrack.

The volumes support the wooden legs.

Old legs.

And the tilt of the house is such

the furniture quiver

when a truck passes the bridge nearby.

Psychology is kept under the rack.

At night mice devour the great minds

finding more bearded ones taste better.

I ask him

Can I borrow Freud?

He refuses stressing on the point-

everything will crumble.

And the mice consume the volumes;

make their works short.

I leave the house after my tuition

becoming a great truck on the bridge nearby.

©All Rights are reserved by Kushal Poddar, 2010☼

Our Little Collaboration

Time in a decanter,

golden, matured

waiting for your dusky lips.

You are evening.

The ephemeral repose

before we open our id.

And let the rabbits have their run.

Now my friends, join in and write out your heart....