Turkey Drumstick - First Time

    I ate a turkey drumstick tonight.  i never liked it before, found it strong in taste, stringy in texture.  But I liked it tonight.  Did it taste different or am I difffernt?
    My mother (died a month ago) always ate the drumsticks in the days following our Thanksgiving feasts.  Perhaps this is another way of commemorating her.
    After dinner I wanted to play a hymn or two.  Usually I go months without playing.  This is the second time in the last month since my mother died that I've felt drawn to the piano.  Mother loved to hear us play hymns and loved to sing them.  I tfeel her presence as I touch the white keys.
    I opened the well-faded and worn hymbook I'g gotten from her storage locker a week ago.  It's front cover is held on by only a few threads.  As I leafed thorugh it to find her favorite ones, a rose petal falls out and a five-pointed liquid amber leaf--red with yellow around the edges.  Written by the hymn, "It is Well with my Soul" are these words, "Carol, please play for me."  Another pencilled request of hers stand above a hymn I haven't sung in thirty years, "I Would Be True." 
    I remember the words in a card from her friend that I reread this week.  "Your mother was an inspriation to me" and now I believe it.  There's been so much negative in the last fifteen years (since Alzheimer's), it's been hard for me to see that.
    I just noted, she wrote the word please. Mom hasn't used that word much lately--another artifact of Alzheimer's I suppose.  I remember mostly her imperious comands, or the prhase my husband hates (which I find myself using), "I'll let you get me a glass of water." 
    "You'll let me!  How about asking me."   
    Manners went out the window with Alzheimer's.  It's good to see in written form that she used to care enough for my feelings and having a smooth relationship to use please, to even write it down.
    As I do these things to commeorate her, I am healing.
    Today I could go to my Adult Sunday school class and talk openly to people.  Last Sunday I'd shed too many tears in the worship service prior and was in no mood to talk about trivialities and holiday plans, so I skipped it.
    Our T-day was simple.  Four of us eating Turkey, green bean casserole, mashed white potatoes and sweet ones also, canned cranberries, and homemade pumpkin pie. When I anticipated only us four, it felt too small, but other ones we'd invited had turned us down and the drive to my siblings houses was too much for us.  THat was part of the reason for my tears on the Sunday prior.
    Two days before T-day, I was glad when a Stanford grad. student took us up on our invite to join us for our feast.  She enlivened our dinner table conversation with telling us of her research in Vietnam.  Just two days later we received a thank you card from her. She'd felt at home; it chased away her lonliness. 
    Thanksgiving was happy day for me, much I could give thanks for.