The Ghosts of Thanksgivings Past

I can't remember if this was a Thanksgiving photo or not. But this was probably taken in 1986, judging by my beard and the deerskin rug on the living room floor. 

 

I can’t remember the last happy Thanksgiving that I experienced in Miami before my mother died in July of 2015.

 As Thanksgiving 2020 lurches its way to my current abode in New Hometown, Florida like a dreadful creature from a 1930s horror film (complete with artificial fog generated by dry ice), I sit in my now claustrophobic bedroom/study and try to recall a holiday season that wasn’t in some way dampened by discord or drama. And even taking into account the passage of time, the unreliability of memory, and my own biases, I can’t remember any truly happy Thanksgivings where my half-sister Vicky was present.

Oh, sure. I can recall those recurrences of the holiday that were peaceful and even joyful because Vicky was absent. Thanksgivings at home with Mom and – on occasion – friends and family members who happened to be in Miami in late November were fun, homey, and stress-free. In the 1990s and early 2000s, Vicky worked as a nurse at Pan American/Metropolitan Hospital, and because it was a small facility with a modest staff, employees had to choose which holiday they wanted off.

My half-sister has always been more of a Christmas fan – she always said that in Colombia there’s no such thing as Thanksgiving, and since she has always identified more as a Colombian than as an immigrant to the U.S., that was her rationale for working over that holiday and choosing to take Christmas Eve/Christmas Day off instead.

Based on this fact, I am 80% sure that Mom and I shared some happy – or at least peaceful – Turkey Days without my half-sibling’s unpredictable and often disruptive presence in the years before my mother became gravely ill after Christmas of 2009.  (In fact, I think Thanksgiving of ’09 was one of those stress-free occasions, partly because Vicky chose to work that day, and partly because we were invited to a neighbor’s house for dinner, so Mom didn’t have to cook.)

Of course, there were years when other nurses at Pan American/Metropolitan Hospital (same facility, different names/owners) chose to work on Thanksgiving so they didn’t have to work on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, so Vicky either chose to celebrate with relatives on her father’s side of the family or with us.

And, for the life of me, I can’t remember a single instance when Thanksgivings with Vicky were joyous, or at least drama-free.

I suppose that prior to 1987 – a pivotal year that defined my relationship with my troubled (and troublesome) relative –  Mom, Vicky, and I must have had at least one happy Thanksgiving. Memory is, of course, a tricky thing, especially when it is clouded by anger, sadness, and resentment. Again, throughout her long career as a nurse (1978-2015). Vicky almost always was absent from my Mom’s Thanksgiving table, either because she was working or because she preferred to go elsewhere – La Maison Diaz-Granados was almost always her last preferred option if she had other invitations on her social schedule.

My mother was not – as I was when I was younger – a teetotaler by any stretch of the imagination. On the contrary, she tended to avoid drinking alcoholic beverages unless she had company that liked to drink booze. And most of the time, Mom was the kind of person who set limits on her drinking (except when she had a rare bout of depression; on those occasions, she could – and did – drink way too much): usually three vodkas with tonic water or three screwdrivers.

Vicky, on the other hand, was – and probably still is – an alcoholic, a trait she inherited from her father’s side of the family. When she worked 40-hour weeks at the various hospitals where she was employed (American, Pan American/Metropolitan), she was careful to limit herself to drink only two glasses of wine before going to bed on days when she worked the next morning. But when she was off…the sky was the limit as far as her consumption of booze went.

And because Vicky’s moods veered wildly from one extreme (wildly exuberant on one end of the emotional spectrum to morose and even aggressive on the other), Mom and I dreaded get-togethers when alcohol was in the mix. We just never knew which facet of Vicky’s personality would come to the for once the festivities got underway. Mom, most of all, worried because Vicky had a bad habit of driving under the influence and like any good parent, she didn’t want her oldest child to be arrested for DUI – which apparently she was, at least once – or to get into a car accident on her way back home.

With rare exception, holidays with my half-sister were either marked by angst-filled arguments or tense, nearly-silent dinners when the three of us would exchange only superficial pleasantries, eat dinner, maybe watch a TV show in Mom’s room upstairs, and endure several hours of obligatory “family togetherness” till either Mom or Vicky said they were tired and my half-sis went back to her apartment.

The worst Thanksgiving I ever had while Mom was still in relatively good health was in the early 2000s when Vicky decided to invite her cousin Andres, Mom, and me to her place for dinner. That was a booze-fueled nightmare that began on a bad note from the minute we got into Vicky’s car and ended when, after Vicky got smashed after drinking several vodka-based drinks, she got into a serious argument with Mom over Vicky’s drunken attempt to get her Aunt Emma to reconcile with our mother after a decades-long estrangement. Things got so bad that Mom called Yellow Cab and got us a ride home before we even had dinner. (I don’t even remember what was on the menu; I just remember my half-sister throwing a tantrum because Mom and I wanted to go home.)

That was nearly 20 years ago, and although Mom would later go visit Vicky at her apartment for lunch with mutual friends, I never returned. And, of course, once Mom was sick and bed-ridden, our last family gatherings were hardly what I call enjoyable.

I know that Thanksgiving 2020 will not be as bad as any of the ones I shared with my troubled and manipulative sibling, and I will do my best to not behave like she did, even though I am not exactly a happy camper right now. I am, of course, mindful that – for the time being – I am still part of a family group and I have to respect other people’s feelings and behave like a civilized person.

After all, my mom raised me to be a decent person. I can’t dishonor her memory by behaving like a horse’s ass, right?