The Constellation

Thanksgiving, 1985.

I just looked up the date on the internet:  November 28, 1985.  I couldn't recall the actual date, and yet, I recall the events of that day.  I think of that day every time I look to the sky on a cloudless night and I see familiar constellations.  Like the constellations, I remember the people of that day.  I remember their conversations, their camaraderie, their warmth.  In my mind, when I'm lonely for some semblance of normalcy, of strength, of happiness as it was - I go there, I go to November 28, 1985.  

I am twelve years old on this day in 1985.  In this moment, I'm looking at myself in this mirror of memory. On this day, I am wearing one of my favorite shirts, a long-sleeved pearlized snap button-down light blue number and my favorite blue jeans.  I am a little pudgy, but not the fat boy I would become in just a few short years.

I love food.  I particularly love the food my Aunt Margaret Lasser cooks.  I'm sampling the food she cooked on that special day, and I'm struggling with understanding why I liked her food so much.  Her turkey is dry and requires ample gravy to make it edible.  The gravy itself is from a can, it's not homemade.  Her mashed potatoes are lumpy and way too buttery.  The green bean and pearl onion saute' smells like cigarettes?  What is this mush?  Oh, it's Stove Top Stuffing.

D I S C U S T I N G ! ! !

I've turned away from the food on the table and I'm looking at Uncle Albert Weston.  He's my grandmother Hortense' younger brother.  My middle name, Albert, is his name.  My parents gave me that name in his honor.  Wow, he's wearing seriously thick-lensed glasses.  I'm thinking I could use his lenses in my microscope.  I'm standing right next to him and he's saying something about my hair.  He's forever patting me on the head.  Man, I'm twelve years old.  I'm not a child.  Stop that!  He's laughing.  What is that I smell on him? He's leaned down to look me in the eye.  Oh, it's the brylcream in his hair.  At least it's a pleasant scent.  Okay, I'm done Uncle Al, moving on.

Next, I encounter cousins Donovan and LeeAnn.  They are so much fun, but I'm still mad at Donovan.  He knows I hate that movie Jaws about the killer shark.  And yet, he terrorized me all last summer at the Dobbyn's Creek swimming hole with his endless underwater assaults, taunts, and dunks.  In this moment I'm thinking, "F%&ck you and your smug smile, Donovan."  

I love you, LeeAnn.  She's always so sweet and she has a discustingly delicious sense of humor.  With LeeAnn, bathroom humor takes on high art.

"LeeAnn," Aunt Margaret, her mother, interrupts, "could you take this box out to the recycling, please?"

"Shit, I recycle my own box two, three, four times a night," says LeeAnn.

"LeeAnn," Aunt Margaret retorts, "there are children present."

"Okay, momma!  I guess I'll take this box out to the recycling."  She's giggling as she takes the box out to the recycling.  Her giggle is a signature laugh that, even today, I mimic and it makes me smile.

The "recycling" is an old oil barrel out in the backyard they use to burn paper and plastic.  In 1985 there is no recycling program.

What's this?  You'd think the President of The United States has arrived.  Everyone seems to be gathered at, on, or in the front door of the house.  It's Aunt Rita and Uncle Morris Anzini!  This is a huge surprise, mostly because they also have a huge immediate family.  How is this happening?  There's a drink in Uncle Morris' hand.  Someone is taking the casserole out of Aunt Rita's hands to set on the table, next to that God-awful Stove Top Stuffing.  

Why is there a cat on the dining room table?

Aunt Rita approaches me.  She's giving me a big hug.  She kisses me on the cheek and I smell the whiskey on her breath.  She's totally inebriated.  Aunt Rita turns to my mother, who just happens to be standing nearby, and says, "Fee-lee-see-ya, your son Orval is getting so big and so handsome!"  Aunt Rita, my father's older sister, has always pronounced my mother's name in this way.

My mother, Felicia, is pouring herself a drink.

Aunt Rita interrupts my mother's drink-making, "Oh Fee-lee-see-ya, is that a Seven and Seven your making yourself?  Honey, I want one!  Let me help you.  What?  Oh Fee-lee-see-ya you need more alcohol in it than that.  Give me that.  This is a time to celebrate!"

The cat is on the floor, walking away from the table with a piece of turkey in its mouth.  Am I the only one who notices this?

Aunt Nancy is seated in the family room, quietly petting B.C. (pron: BEE-CEE), a cute little dog that Uncle Milt, Aunt Margaret's husband, has had for years.  B.C. barks at me, but it isn't a bark of alarm.  She's wagging her tail and wants me to pet her too.  So, I crouch down and I'm petting B.C., and Aunt Nancy is petting B.C.  B.C. loves all this attention.  Uncle George Bearden, Aunt Nancy's first husband, is also present.  He's always around.  I think he's here today for his daughters, cousins Amanda and Natalie.  I'm not sure where they are, no, wait, I see them through the window off the family room.  They're out back at the recycling bin with LeeAnn and Donovan.  Why are they burning trash in the middle of the afternoon?

Wow!  It's getting louder in here.  It sounds like all the adults are in a shouting match with one another, but it's not an angry shouting match.  They're telling jokes and they all think they're funny.

LeeAnn is the only funny person here.  At least, she can tell a joke.

Uncle George Miller has arrived.  Such a sweet man.  Not a mean bone in his body.  He's come alone.  His wife, Aunt Belle, passed a few years ago.  She was my father's great aunt, my grandfather's sister.  

The room is now eerily silent.

The adults are all gone.  Well, not all the adults.  There's my mother, nursing her Seven and Seven. She appears to have made a Seven and Seven for each of the other Aunts.  The aunts each appear to be in a state of suspended animation, perched, drink in hand, looking away from each other.  And there's George Bearden, sitting on the couch in the family room.  Us kids are all here.

All the other adults are missing.  They are all dead.

After that Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving 1985, all of the men I mentioned, with the exception of Uncle George Bearden, died.  In quick succession, for a number of health-related reasons, all the men were gone before the end of the coming year, 1986.

This was a very difficult period of time for my family, and it marked both the end of one chapter, and the beginning of a new chapter in our lives.

Whenever I look at the stars on a clear night, I can see the constellations in the heavens.  I can also see the constellation of my family as it existed to 1985.  Things have changed dramatically since then, but when I close my eyes and I think really hard, all the stars come back to me, and I remember their light.