Swing: There Goes Emotion

When the Matron was a Young Miss, she was nursing her firstborn baby when she got the phone call everyone dreads: her beloved father, dead! Gone, from a heart attack in just a few short unexpected minutes.

This was 13 years ago on November 27th, the day before Thanksgiving. Just like today. And also, on November 27th, the day after Young Miss's birthday which is on November 26th. She had talked to her father at length on her birthday and for this, she will always be grateful.

Dad: "Talking to you is always the best part of my day."

Sniffle! Me too, Dad. She knows she fell off the third person there by the way.

The Matron's father LOVED Thanksgiving. It was his holiday above all others - -the feast! the family! the phone calling!. She knows that her stepmother reads this blog and misses that man every single day. Hi Nancy. Me too.

She's written about this before: her brother and sister never knew their father, beyond shadows from early in their childhoods. She mourns that loss, as well as her own. And the day her father died? In some unnamed quarters, there was unbridled joy and celebration. Let's leave that party to the imagination. But all these dynamics color that day and this holiday, still.

Tomorrow, she will toast her own birthday! The Matron will give thanks --including the fact that she's not COOKING for the first time in eternity. Have you ever been invited to Thanksgiving dinner at the home of famous local chefs? Thanks to Merrick's friendship with their child (BONUS -- the grown-ups adore each other), the Matron happens to now be in the back pocket of the couple who started this restaurant and they are doing the food.

The Matron hasn't eaten in TWO WEEKS in preparation.

But she will toast her birthday. Give thanks for all the blessings at hand. And give a silent nod to the two deeply flawed people who created her, their lost loves, and the brilliant hope they left in their wake -- the children.