Growing up Thanksgiving meant we were going to my Mothers, Mothers house.
I was a first generation American so we called my Grandma Vavó, which is not the way you are supposed to say it in Portuguese. I wouldn’t learn that until many years later. My other Portuguese Grandma went by Mae, which must have been hard to stomach for all the real mothers of the grandchildren.
Neither place was soft, but Vavo’s house was the worst. My Mom came to America and moved into the part of Pawtucket, the part where Mineral Spring Ave and Lonsdale Ave meet. This part of Rhode Island that make my kids mention that we we are not in Cranston anymore. My very privileged white children who go home to the burbs of the West side of Cranston think My husband and I grew up in neighborhoods they have only seen on Shameless. We pass right by Vavo’s street to get to my other Grandmothers house. I still visit her and to get there we have to go past Vavo’s house every single time. No one mentions it as we pass by. I don’t thing the kids would even know which street she lived on. They have not had to suffer my Vavo’s house, and this is my greatest gift to them. A gift of not knowing what it’s like to be in places so toxic they linger on your organs for a lifetime.
They can only understand in the hindsight of a girl who was too smart too indulge in another round of dramatic, toxic, family bullshit. The real issue was my Mother. My poor Mother with all her common sense but no ability to do anything with it but drink, rage, and cry.
As soon as I could speak I was telling her that her family was not right, and these people did not speak english together, and taught none of us how to speak Portuguese -so we would not know what they were talking about, and I still caught on not only because I understood for the most part all of my Dads families dialect of Portuguese and my Mothers and Aunts, but not Vavo and Vovo. I like to think it was a secret gift from the lord, but you did not need to understand the language to catch the vibe in there.
My Grandmother lived in a three family house. White with black shutters a Garden draped around the front gate. Mary in a half bath and a crying head of thorns Jesus plaque by the front door no one ever used unless it was a parade day. She lived in the basement Apartment, dark with fake wood paneling. Her downstairs house was for function the middle floor was for show. The second floor was only for the Rosary when the Holy Spirit wand and crown were passed around the parishioners in my Grandmothers church. A gaggle of old woman and men praying the rosary and then so many desserts! I liked the rosary days more than Thanksgiving, and Thanksgiving was the only other day we were allowed in there.
Not even for Christmas were we allowed up there with our presents. She packed us in the narrow confines of the basement while a statue of white baby jesus took up an entire front living room with glitter dripping ceilings , empty upstairs. Thanksgiving meant finding the right outfit, bringing the right stories. My Mom would fuss and run down the things we could and could not bring up while we were in attendance of her siblings and parents. There was always some kind of drama. Sibling drama between the core four born to my Grandparents and the ones my oldest Aunt birthed into the family as well. There was always some kind of gossip, or lie that had to be kept up with, and could I please not be a heathen and embarrass her.
The trouble here was that her Parents did not like me. By the time I am eight I am the Black Sheep of the grandkids in my mothers family. This was no fault of my own, it was my last name, and the other side of my family that would have me pegged as the outcast. Choices made by emotionally stunted grownups had me getting a coffee mug for Christmas from my Grandparents while another grandkid opened a gold ring at the same cramped Christmas. I hated my Grandparents way before the coffee mug just for how they made my Mother act and feel.
They would create little fires everywhere, even pitting their own kids against each other with lies. This made holidays ultra fun if you catch what I mean. Thanksgiving made me feel gross. I would always leave with this residue of ick that would not scrub off. Stress eating the desserts, and wishing to disappear while being criticized for being too fat, too dumb at math, too rude to my mother, too disrespectful, dressed to revealingly and on and on and on. By the time I could drive I had planned my escape
. On my Dads side of the family there are only two grand daughters and my little cousin was eight when I was a driver during Thanksgiving, and I thought I would start a new tradition and take her to the movies every year to get me out of the awful confines of my Grandmothers house. And that is what I did. I would stay at my Grandmothers from 1-5 ish which was still awful enough and then head out to take my little cousin to a movie.
Year after year I kept leaving and then when I had my first son a decade later I had the excuse of needing to get home before his bed time, which had me missing the movies, but still out of my Grandmothers house. The only memorable Thanksgiving I have that leaves me with fond memories is my sophomore year of high school . The one where my Aunt let me do a lot of shots of Vodka and I was so drunk I made my cousin take me to get a Hot Chocolate at Dunkin and fell asleep holding it in his pristine truck.
While I did not drink again until I was way past the legal age because spending Thanksgiving night with my head in the toilet really ruined underage drinking for me, I cant help but notice the best Thanksgiving I ever had at my Grandmothers I was too drunk to remember. Thanksgiving now is a safe day.
We go to the movies again, but not with my little cousin who is living her own life a continent away but with my little family that I made for myself. The one who also complains, critiques and in general try to bring down my good mood like a Thanksgiving at My Vava’s.
Im trained up in the ways of misery loving company these days though.
What I dont do is stress.
This year we are making chicken parm, spaghetti and garlic bread because no one but me really loves Thanksgiving food, and I make all those things when I feel like eating them. Not just on Thanksgiving. There is no one to dress up for, no story to remember to tell if I am asked a question I am not supposed to answer, noone telling me I got fat, no one asking me if I really want another slice of bread, no one who hates on me behind my back, but is nice to me when I am there smiling at them. I am trying to reming myself of this when my mind gets pulled back to all the times I left Thanksgiving at my grandmothers to cry in the shower. I can’t help but wonder how my Mom could submit us to all of that over and over, year after year just to have a god awful woman tell her that she was loved, which never did happen.
As I prep pie crust for Hershey pie ,a nod at my Husbands holiday rituals I am reminded of all the times I watched my Mother be crushed under her family with a point to prove, and justice to be served, as if any of that mattered at all. I am reminded of how hard she tried to be what would make her mother happy instead of understanding nothing made her mother happy but chaos.
My Grandmother died at home in May of 2017. I would spend that October watching my 34 year old friend die in her bed in her house that same year, and what I can tell you was the look on my Grandmothers face was terrified, and my Friend Elana looked like a peaceful angel with her sweet sense of humor still in tact. That was validating for me then. My Grandmother should have been terrified because she spent her life being a toxic bitch. It showed me we cannot outrun the Reaper when she comes to claim you with an accountability sheet of our human transgressions in her hand.
I would get to drop My Grandfather too and even while my mom was still alive, which felt like a major win for me.
I went over the year after my Grandma left like a good grand daughter doing what she was supposed to be doing, but that second year we stood in the hallway knocking on the door to all the cars there and none to let us in.
When I got to my Moms house she was sobbing in her bed and My dad was rubbing his forehead at the table.
“They didn’t let you in on purpose!” She shouted, snot running down her face a little drunk and a lot dramatic.
Ok, I said. No big deal. Good for me.
My Holiday at my Mothers was over though she had to drown her sorrows in cheap vodka and fake oj and cry about her awful her family was as usual.
I did not talk to my Grandfather again and years later at the only cousin I really talk to in the family’s fathers funeral he was there looking like death was around the corner. He tried to get my attention, but I declined and a cousin in law said your Grandfather is waiting to talk you, which I responded with well he’s going to be waiting forever and walked away.
Long gone are the days when I felt obligated by that bullshit. The -there your family, so you have to crap. Take that conversation up with the lord sir, cause I do not have any thing to say.
no forgiveness to give, no look of reconciliation to squander.
He died a few weeks later, and I did not go to the services. I did not feel bad about that, or like I had done something wrong. I felt liberated from a family I had wanted to be rid of since I was seven years old. I felt rid of these demons from this family that no matter how many holidays i make safe i will never feel true solace from, because I was their grand daughter born to a woman too weak to tell them to fuck off.
but, I did.
I like sometimes that my kids have no idea what it was like for me, and then other times I wonder if they did if they would be nicer to me like when they were cute and little. I hope to one day have big family Thanksgivings and I know I won’t ruin them by being a petty, irrelevant, drama queen like my Grandmother did, but who knows what kind of people these kids will try to drag into my life.
May Thanksgiving not hurt this year. XOXOXOXO
