God Bless This Family

Thanksgiving gatherings bring forth old memories as well as new ones. A young boy learns the traditions of his own family so that he can pass them along to a new generation.

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I woke up Thanksgiving morning with my mother knocking on my bedroom door to tell me to “Get up! It’s Thanksgiving! We have a lot of things to do before the rest of the family gets here!”

She repeated this process with my brother, Mark, and my sisters, Leah, and Rachel, as I groan and finally sit up on the side of my bed trying to get my bearings. I’m not sure which I prefer less; the alarm clock shaking me rudely awake on school mornings, or my mother pounding on my door on special days like this, and the weekends. Both are just as annoying as the other. I just wish there were another way to bring a fellow out of a pleasant dream where he is stealing kisses, among other things, from the hottest girl in his class, Tanya Givens, than what they have had to offer thus far. I guess there never will be. Once you are brought back to reality, it requires a sharp and brutal reminder that there are some fantasies that will never be realized. Me being with Tanya is one such scenario. She dates a senior, Chris Pearson, who just so happens to be the captain of our school’s football team, the Peace High School Grizzlies (Go Grizzlies!) and would pound this bookish sophomore into jelly if he even looked crossways at his girlfriend. Go figure. Even if he, or she, perish forbid, ever decided to dump one or the other, Tanya would have more qualified suitors standing in line waiting to do things with her that I had just recently dreamed of doing with her.

I let out a sigh and put on my slippers. There came no sounds of movement from my siblings’ respective bedrooms since my mother moved away to go work on more meal preparations in the kitchen. This meant I could arguably be the first in the bathroom to take care of my various morning rituals before the others beat me to it. Mark was 8 years old and didn’t take long, but he wasn’t the one I was worried about. That honor belonged to Leah and Rachel, especially Leah. She had just started “developing” last year and boys were taking notice of her. At 13 years of age, you would think she was a full grown woman getting ready to go out for a night on the town with as long as she took getting ready. Rachel was a year younger and no better. If I lagged in any way, these two blossoming young ladies would be in there for the better part of an hour while I was forced to wait my turn. God help me if they decided to be in there at the same time to gossip and help each other prepare for the day ahead.

I got up and shuffled to open my bedroom door and get out into the hallway before two of the three females I lived under the same roof with beat me to the lavatory to commence with my morning ritual. From my bedroom doorway, I could see that only the nightlight in the bathroom was on. Fan-frikkin’-tastic. I was in the clear. I grabbed my clothes that I had sat out the night before and made my way to the bathroom and closed the door behind me, switching on the light as I did so.

I had no more squeezed the toothpaste from the tube onto my toothbrush and was just beginning to brush when the inevitable knocking started. “What?!” I cried; a bit peeved that I couldn’t even get one thing I needed to get done before the harpies were at the gates. “I just got in here!”

“Hurry up, Johnny! I need to get in there!”

Leah.

“Just wait your dang turn,” I said, returning to my brushing.

She was persistent. “Well, get a move on, will you? Rachel and I have more things to do in there than you or Mark. If you were any kind of gentleman, you would let the ladies go first.”

I spit the toothpaste into the sink and turned on the tap water to rinse out the basin and fill my cup I kept on a nearby shelf for rinsing my mouth. I had the water going on near full blast to drown out her nagging. But my not playing her game and exchanging retorts with her verbal assault didn’t stop her in the least. The second I turned off the water, it was obvious she had carried on without me.

“…before breakfast anyway!”

I wiped my mouth dry on the towel. “What was that you said? I didn’t hear you over the water.”

A pause. She was irritated that I wasn’t listening to her. She was keeping her anger in check as to not start screaming at me and therefore alerting mom or even dad that the Bathroom Wars were well underway.

“I said,” Leah replied, her tone dripping with barely disguised annoyance. “What are you doing brushing your teeth before breakfast anyway? You’ll just have to come back in here and brush them all over again.”

“I’m not eating breakfast this morning,” I said beginning to take off my pajamas and underwear. “I want to save room for all that great food that mom is making and whatever Grandma Mertice and Grandpa Wendell and who all else is coming bring over. Can’t rightly do that with a belly full of bacon and eggs.”

“Don’t take forever in there, Johnny, or I’ll tell mom you’re hogging the bathroom.”

“Who’s in there?” Rachel had finally made her presence known.

“Johnny.” Leah replied. “He’s wasting time instead of doing what he’s supposed to be doing so we can finally get in there.”

“Is he, you know…?”

Here Rachel made grunting and heavy breathing sounds. I could imagine her hand was mimicking the motions of masturbation. Both she and Leah burst into giggles over her shenanigans.

“Just for that,” I told them, “I think I will take an extra long shower. I hope there’s enough hot water left over for the two of you when I’m done.”

This brought a chorus of complaints from my sisters many of which were spoken simultaneously and the obligatory “I was just joking!” or “She was just joking!”

“Ya snooze, ya lose.” I said, getting into the shower and turning on the water, adjusting the stream accordingly and drowning them completely out.

Roughly some twenty minutes later, I stepped from the shower stall, taking time drying out my hair, putting on deodorant and getting dressed. After fifteen minutes of dragging my feet, I emerged from the bathroom, left suitably fogged up (I didn’t turn on the exhaust fan. I could brush my hair in the mirror of my own bedroom.) for my sisters who both looked madder than wet hens and glared balefully at me when I stepped out into the hallway. “Enjoy the bathroom, guys. I think I left some hot water.”

They said nothing in reply and stalked into the bathroom, slamming the door behind them.

Mark was just making his presence known when I was in my room and about to close the door. He stopped and gave a nod towards the bathroom. “They in there?”

“Yep,” I said in reply to his query. “I beat them in there this morning. I used most of the hot water and left the mirror all steamy. They were none too happy about it.”

“Yes!” Mark hissed triumphantly under his breath. “Dumb girls.”

We exchanged high fives and Mark went back to his own room to await his turn. My little brother is a good kid most of the time. I don’t want to give the illusion we are always on the same page, because we aren’t. We have spats here and there like any brothers would, but we are totally united on one front: Our sisters are the enemy and there’s no way we will let them get one up on us, though it’s not for their lack of trying.

After I combed my hair, I went back out to see what was going on in the rest of the house. The smells of what my mother was preparing for the Thanksgiving spread thus far made my mouth water. I caught the whiff of turkey roasting in the oven. Underneath this most delectable of scents was the spicy aroma of her made from scratch cornbread stuffing. I also caught the faint whiff of apple, pumpkin and sweet potato pies that had their turn in the stove earlier that morning. Mom would start the veggies later on as the biggest part of the meal that required lots of prep time had been cooked for the most part. She was precise to the moment when everything should be suitably completed so when the rest of our family started to arrive, they would be treated to a scrumptious hot meal. The last thing to go in would be the yeast rolls and there would be that lingering smell of freshly baked bread topping off the atmosphere with a warm feeling of nostalgia and a Thanksgiving memory that could be remarked on years down the road when me, my brother and sisters and our cousins would have our own families to bring over to my parents house for the holidays.

As I made my way to the kitchen I saw mom’s touches apparent throughout the hallway and walls of the other rooms I had to traverse through. Harvest ambience adorned every possible surface, from the subtle scattering of faux autumn leaf ornamentation purchased at craft stores in Denver and other places mom liked to shop. Here and there were paintings of pilgrims and Native American men, women and children breaking bread at the first Thanksgiving in the so-called New World. Smiling, happy face scarecrows were carefully placed like sentinels near doorways. My mother always goes all out for the holidays, especially for the last three big ones of the year. The Thanksgiving décor would be down by tomorrow and no later than Saturday to make way for Christmas decorations. I love my mother and I love the holidays, but I would be lying if I said I was sorry to see them finally go when their time was at last up. Everyone is really, whether they admit it, or not.

I finally get to the kitchen and see mom busily adding sugar to a bowl of other ingredients in which she is concocting yet another dish. Every burner on the stove is occupied by pots and pans boiling or simmering various items like eggs, potatoes, peas, mixed vegetables and whatnot. I spy a piece of wax paper lying on the counter where mom has made some of her famous chocolate and coconut bonbons and left them out to cool before placing them in the refrigerator. So far, she hasn’t remarked about my presence in the kitchen with her. She is too busy getting ready to be elbow deep in whatever she is making next. She had her little portable television playing as well with one of those shopping networks hawking their latest Christmas wares as “wonderful, last minute stocking stuffers for those loved ones that are hard to shop for.” With her back being to me, and if I am careful and choose a piece of the candy closest to the edge of the paper, maybe she wouldn’t notice if I snuck just one…

“Don’t even think about it, Johnny,” she said, brushing away a lock of her hair that had fallen on her forehead, not even turning around to acknowledge me directly. “You’ll get more than your fair share, but you won’t get any at all if you and your brother and sisters start pecking away at them like little birds. We have to save some for everybody else too.”

Mother ESP. It’s better than any lie detector or GPS, on, or above the planet. It’s practically infallible.

“Sorry, mom.” I said, not meaning a word of it.

My mother looked over her shoulder to give me the once over. “I was hoping you weren’t dressed in your best clothes for company yet. There are still chores that have to be done. The animals all have to be fed. You know the drill.”

Indeed, I did. I had put on a plaid shirt and old jeans to go out and do my chores. I didn’t see the reason why I should do things any different just because it was a special day. Mom always worries needlessly. I guess she wouldn’t be a mother if she didn’t.

“Dad come in last night?’ I asked.

She nodded. “About three this morning, which, incidentally, is the time I got up to start getting things ready for dinner.”

I perked up, surprised. Dad was an OTR truck driver for The Bazaar Superstore chain. Most times he was home at various hours depending on his route. During the holiday seasons he could be away for days and not come back until almost the proverbial last minute when such events happened at our house. Usually, when he did, he was so worn out that he would celebrate the festivities for as long as he could hold out and then he would go to bed and crash hard for the rest of the day, night and sometimes until the next. “So where is he now? Passed out in you guys bedroom?”

“No,” mom replied with a tired smile. “He’s out messing around in the barn making sure the heaters for the animals are working so they can keep warm in their pens. He said when you were up and moving around he wanted you to come out and help him with something.”

“Did he say what?”

“Nope. The only thing he said was that it was a surprise.”

I went to the door and looked outside. The day was gray and overcast. Even though the house was warm and cozy, I could tell on the other side of the thin barrier of the sliding glass doors, it was bone numbing cold. “Looks like it might snow.” I said, still peering about outside.

“The folks on the news said we’re supposed to get our biggest chance of it sometimes around lunch. It gives the holiday that little extra special something, don’t you think?”

Mom’s enthusiasm was infectious. I couldn’t help but smile myself, despite the fact I had to go out in the chilly morning and do chores and Lord knows what else my dad might have cooked up for me. “It sure does, mom,” I said reaching for my old knit cap and parka hanging on a hook by the door. “I’ll go out and see what dad needs, check on the cows and pigs and be back in a jiffy.”

“Do you have your gloves?”

“They’re here in my coat pocket.”

“Are you wearing warm socks?”

I lifted up my pant leg to show her my tube socks and gray winter socks. “Two pairs. I will be okay.”

“Make sure you wear your rubber boots as to not let your feet get wet.”

“I’m on it.” I said, as I buttoned up my coat.

“I know I’m being fussy; I just don’t want you to get sick, is all.”

“I know, mom,” I said, reassuring her. “I’ll be just fine.”

She sat the bowl she had been stirring in down on the counter. “Come here, you,” she said.

I walked over and she gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “You’re growing ups so darn fast,” she said, her tone a soothing one. “I just want to mother you and be there for you as long as I still can before you’re on your own and out of the house.”

“You’ll always be my mother. That will never change.”

“I love you, Johnny” she said.

“I love you too, mom.”

She touched the side of my face, her eyes glittering with unshed tears. She smiled. “Bring some more wood when you come back in. I don’t want the fire to die down while everybody is here.”

“Okay,” I said as I slid my cap over my head and ears.

“Don’t forget now.”

“I won’t.”

With that I went to the back doors and opened them to see what awaited me outside at the barnyard.

For once, the meteorologists got it right. It was a very cold and crisp autumn day. The wind was blowing in north from Canada and being strengthened in its resolve with a bit of help from the Rocky Mountains themselves. I looked about at my own small piece of the world here in our yard.

The trees were barren for the most part, their leaves lying thick in the immediate area surrounding them. Most of the grass was dead for the season taking on the same hue as the sky above with the exception of a few tufts of green here and there, but even that would be gone come the next snow fall. Most of the outlying buildings including the barn, pump house (We were out in the country and had well water) tool shed and shop, the latter my father was having constructed, also had this same shade of dull and lifeless gray. Dad had talked about painting them all one day but he would most likely never get around to it. The woods beyond our property had that sleepy time quality about them that suggested that even the shadows were too cold to be out and hunkered down in whatever nook and cranny they could find to huddle together for warmth. There was a ghostly stillness about everything that that dulled one’s senses and made you sleepy. I was already wishing for the sanctity of my room and coziness of the covers of my bed. If not for all the work that still had to be done, I would beg off and make up some excuse to retire to my bedroom for the rest of the day and tell everyone to not bother me until it was all over…after the first of next year.

Then it began to happen. Snow started to fall. I don’t want to give the impression that it suddenly started falling with any type of frequency. It was just the random flake spinning lazily from the sky, but it gave me a charge all the same. There was just something magical about snow falling on special days. I know if anyone had been watching me at the time, they would have thought me to have lost all sense I had about me and looking the complete fool standing there in the middle of the yard gazing up at the sky grinning like a Jack-O-Lantern. I stuck my tongue out to try and catch at least one flake before moving on to the barn to help dad with whatever he needed to have done.

“Johnny!”

I glanced toward the barn. Somebody had been watching me. It was my father. From what I could make out, he had a grin of his own, but it wasn’t of wonderment, it was one of puzzlement. “Land sakes, boy, what in the world are you standing there with your tongue stuck out like that for?” he called out to me, but not unkindly.

Although I had only caught an episode or two here or there and mainly at my grandparents house when we went to visit them, my father always reminded me of the patriarch of the family on The Walton’s. I’m not saying he looked like the actor that portrayed him and he didn’t wear overalls like John Walton, he just had that air about him; kindly and wise beyond his years. I started toward the barn, answering his question while I walked. “I was trying to catch snowflakes on my tongue like I used to do when I was a kid. Just being silly, I suppose.”

My dad chuckled about this. “It’s not such a foolish notion,” he replied. “I’ve caught more than my share and then some over the years.”

“No kidding?” I said, slightly amazed.

“No kidding,” he repeated. “There’s plenty of time to do all that later on. We have some grown up work to do. Hell, I might even get out there and catch a few with you later on.”

It was little things like this that made me love my old man more than anything else. He knew how to savor the small pleasures and in many ways was still the boy who grew up here in the mountainous region where we now lived in Peace. He had lived here all his life, never venturing too far away, except on his trucking routes. He would in all likelihood be buried here as well in the little graveyard of the church we all attended from time to time.

I gave him a hug when I reached him. He gave me a warm one back.

“Good to have you back home, dad.”

“It’s always good to be back, Johnny. I missed all of you while I was gone. I always do.”

“We always miss you too. Mom says it’s supposed to snow more later on.”

“So I heard on the radio when I was driving in.”

“I didn’t see your rig out in the yard,” I said, looking about to see if I could see it parked elsewhere. “Where did you put it?”

“It’s out in the back field. If that big truck is in the yard, there won’t be any place for the rest of our company to park their cars.”

“I’d better get to my chores and then help you get done with whatever mom said you needed help with. She also wants us to bring more firewood into the house when we come back in.”

“Your chores are already done.”

The surprises just kept coming. “Really?”

Dad nodded. “Really. The cows and pigs have all been fed. I even took care of the chickens so your mother can concentrate on the cooking. The heaters all check out, so if the animals all stay in their stalls, none of them should freeze out in the open. It’s all been taken care of.”

“So what’s up then?” I asked, understandably curious.

My father looked me in the eye, becoming very serious. “I have something to show you in the barn,” he said. “Follow me.”

Dad put his arm around my shoulders and gave my right one a reassuring squeeze. We walked like that up to the time we got to the door. He let me go to open the door. He nodded and indicated for us to go inside and we stepped into the place where a warm light shone on us from within.

I stopped suddenly, looking wide-eyed at what my father had brought me in to see as he closed the door behind us. I guess I shouldn’t have been too surprised at what I saw before me. It’s not like it was my first time, or anything, but this time had a different feel to it. Something that had never happened before was about to happen on this particular occasion, something I would have a big hand in doing.

My father walked up to stand beside me. He also stared at what I was looking at. When he spoke, his voice had a quiet, almost reverent tone to it. “Well, Johnny,” he said. “What do you think?”

Lying on thick swath of hay was a girl. Well, a young woman would have been a better description. She was wearing track suit the same hue as everything outside. Her mouth was taped closed with duct tape and her hands were tied behind her back with zip ties. She didn’t look up at us when we came in. It was obvious the by the way she was lolled about on the hay she was drugged. She wasn’t sleeping on her own accord. Nobody could sleep comfortably in the position she was in.

I shrugged. I tried to say something profound for the occasion, but all I could get out was, “She’s okay, I guess.”

“She’s better than okay,” my old man said with a gleam in his eye reserved for children on Christmas morning or someone who had just come unexpectedly upon a huge sum of money. “She’s nigh damn perfect.”

“Where did you find her?” I asked.

“I have been watching this one for a long time,” he said, still speaking in that hushed tone. “I kept up with her comings and goings, followed her schedule and paid close attention to when and where she would be alone and its frequency. She was much heftier when I first spotted her and I was going to go about my way and find somebody else, but something told me to wait and I’m glad I did.”

Dad moved forward and squatted beside the girl. He lovingly brushed the woman’s dark hair from her face and looked down on her with pride. “As you can probably tell from the jogging gear she’s wearing, this one was trying to shed some pounds, maybe to impress some fella or other. Maybe because with the holidays upon us she knew it would just make her heavier and she didn’t want that. Either way, that’s a big plus for us.”

“Why is that?” I asked but knowing the reason already.

“Well,” he said, getting to his feet, still looking down at her. He brushed his hands off and looked back at me. “You don’t want too much fat on them, you want just enough for flavoring. If they’re too skinny, the meat tends to be stringy. You don’t want that either.”

Dad walked over to a table where he had laid out his knives, an axe, and a couple of aprons and a stack of waxed paper for wrapping. He took one of the knives out of the belt where it was kept and held it up and turned it over in his hand, the blade catching the gleam of the dull light on its polished surface.

“What are you about to do, dad?”

My father’s eyes flicked upward from the blade to me. “It’s not what I’m about to do, Johnny. It’s what you’re going to do.” He said, his tone serious and even. “This is the year you become a man by bringing meat to the table.”

I didn’t know what to say at that moment. I was flattered that my father would refer to me as a man and not a boy. I was also frightened. I had never killed anything before, not even one of the animals we also butchered for meat. The cattle, fowl and swine had nothing to fear from me. Yet.

He continued. “I know this seems rather sudden, John. But you’re fifteen and it’s due.”

With that, he passed the knife to me hilt first. I took it with all the awe King Arthur must have felt when he pulled Excalibur from the stone where it was anchored. “I-I-I d-don’t know what to say…” I managed to stammer out.

“There’s nothing to say, son. It’s your duty. You have to do it. I will show you how, but it’s your hand that has to do the deed. It’s your right of passage.”

I slowly turned the knife around in my grasp, looking it over like one might when perusing a fish at the market. He was right, of course. My dad was always right; at least in my eyes, he always was. Finally, I nodded, resigned to the task at hand. “Okay,” I said, glancing up at him. “Show me what to do.”

My father smiled warmly, his eyes glittering with tears of pride. He gave my shoulder an affectionate squeeze. “I can’t tell you how proud I am of you, John. Today, I teach you a

tradition that has been in our family since it began and when Mark is of age, we will teach him. Someday, you will show your son and so it will go on for generations to come.”

“But…what if I don’t have a son?”

He laughed. It was a hearty and happy sound full of mirth. “Then I guess you will have to teach your daughters.” He said, giving me a friendly wink. “You ready to do this?”

I mustered the best smile I could and nodded. “I-I’m ready.”

He gave me a pat on the back and together we walked over to the woman on the still lying on the pile of straw. My father squatted down and picked her limp form up and walked her over to a bench beside the table where the knives and various instruments of the abattoir awaited the task at hand. At one end sat a stainless steel bucket. He then lay her down on the bench and I helped him turn her over where she was on her belly, her head hanging over the side just over the bucket. He then turned to me. “Well, lets get it done. Your mother’s crock pot awaits and we have to get the rest of what we don’t eat today in the freezer. It’s a great day for butchering. Cold. Very little chance of the meat spoiling.”

I nodded down at her. “What if she wakes up?”

“I gave her a pretty strong sedative,” he said, also looking down at her. “It’s the most humane way. She won’t feel a thing. I don’t like to see a poor, dumb animal suffer. That would be wrong.”

“I understand.”

“Now, let’s get it done.” He said. “You’re stalling.”

Once again, he was right. He always was.

“Straddle her body like you’ve seen me do in the past. Use her hair to pull back her head and cut her throat. Try to do it in one single motion. The blade is damn sharp, so be sure not to cut yourself when you do it. I’d hate to have to take you to see Doctor Neil to get stitches. I don’t think he would like it none too much us interrupting his Thanksgiving dinner.”

I let out a slow breath I didn’t realize I had been holding and approached the girl on the bench. I gave my father a glance and he nodded. Being careful as not to trip and become impaled on the knife that I was holding, I threw a leg over the body of the woman and straddled her just under her arms where the shoulders were. I reached down with one hand and latched my fingers tightly in her hair and pulled her head back, exposing her throat. There was a moment of pause as I did this that I thought her eyes popped open, full of awareness as to what was going on around her, but that passed. A trick of the light and my jangled nerves made me see what wasn’t there. My grip tightened on the hilt of the knife, my confidence coming back in a rush. I closed my eyes and silently counted to three.

The knife in my hand swept down and with one swift motion, the blade cut the woman’s throat from ear to ear. The blood began to pour in the bucket immediately. She never made a single sound. I stumbled backward, releasing her hair, gasping at what I had done and on the verge of passing out from the gravity of the deed. My father had been watching the entire ordeal and knew what was about to happen. He was there in a trice, hands reaching out holding the girl’s head up so the blood could continue its flow unabated.

My world spun round and round. A wave of vertigo hit me so hard that I stepped backward on heavy feet until my back hit the wall where I slid down the rough wooden surface and sat down hard, staring off into space at nothing.

My father looked over at me, “Are you okay?” he asked, his tone one of concern.

Of course, I’m okay, pop! I wanted to answer. Never been better! I’m just waiting for the unseen music to cue like it does in those musicals or animated films and you and I can skip arm and arm down a yellow brick road, singing our heads off as we walk toward a happy sunrise! But instead I could only nod slightly, still staring off and said, “Yeah, I’m fine.”

Dad nodded, looking relieved and returned to bleeding the girl out. Less than two minutes later, it was done. The steady stream from the dead woman had slowed to a dull trickle. He gently lay her head back down and came over and took my hand, helping me to my feet. We both looked over at the exsanguinated corpse. “We still have a lot of work to do.” He said. Then he nodded over at the knives still on the table. “Go fetch the blades. I’ll grab the axe and we’ll move this outside. I haven’t had a chance to fix the hoist in the other room, so we’re going to have to go the old fashioned route and tie the carcass between a couple of trees behind the barn. We need to hurry it up. I know your mother’s wondering when we’re going to get something for her to cook, so let’s hop to it.”

We carried our tools outside, pausing only long enough for the both of us to grab four lengths of rope and hauled them out with us. The trees in question weren’t a long walk away, so it was only a moment later we were climbing ladders to secure the higher ropes to the lower limbs and tying off the lower ropes to the trunks of the trees. That done, we went back to the barn to retrieve the body.

Back in the barn, my father said, “Oh! I almost forgot something.”

With that, he reached down into the bucket of blood and dipped his forefinger into the swiftly cooling pool of crimson. He then put three quick swipes of red on my cheeks and forehead. “To commemorate your first kill,” he said. “This is a day you will never forget.”

He was right. Many days and years in the future I would think about this very day when it was time for the annual holiday slaughter. It always causes me to shed a tear that on this auspicious occasion my father was able to pass the proverbial torch over to me and the pride I felt when I officially became a man in our family.

We then lifted the body from the bench, my father taking the arms and me the feet and we took her from the barn.

The body was still face down when we lay her on the ground. I didn’t wait for instruction. I picked up the axe leaning against the stump where we set the rest of our tools and approached the body with grim purpose. My father said nothing but watched with eyes full of pride and expectancy as he lit his old pipe, the one that had been passed down through the generations and would one day be mine. I moved the hair from around the neck to get a good clean cut. Maybe it was the blood dad had smeared on my face, or the fact of my using the killing knife for the first time, maybe both, but I felt no hesitation as I brought the axe up over my head and down. The blade of the axe was wide and very sharp. Dad always kept his tools up to snuff allowing for neither rust nor dullness to tarnish their purpose. The first cut was the only cut and the head rolled free of the body. Very little blood came from the carcass. Most of that was in the bucket in the barn.

My dad ambled over and we stripped the clothes from the body and dad fed them into the trash barrel that he had set to blazing after he lighted his pipe. He picked up the head and sat it inside an old washtub where the rest of the undesirable parts would eventually be put to be processed later on. “The dogs have to eat too,” he said with a shrug. “Let’s get her tied off and finish this up.”

Dad held the body up and in places as I tied off the arms and we both got a leg apiece to tie off to finish the job. I had never removed the internal organs before, so I watched as my father did this particular task and handed him the proper instruments when he requested them, including the shears that cut through the bones of the ribcage as easily as if they had been paper being cut with especially sharpened scissors. Once he was done with the initial slicing and cutting here and there, the organs and ribcage fell free to land with a slopping sound on the hard, almost frozen ground. I had to make several trips to collect all of the steaming sweetbreads and to place them in the tub. I had one moment of pause when I made my first trip to the tub. The girl’s head sat upright. Her eyes had come open and seemed to look up into mine as if accusing me of all wrongdoing that had been visited upon her. I shook this off and dropped the guts on the head, it fell over and lay on the side of the face half submerged in gore. After another two trips, you could no longer see any distinct features and the head was now just a lump in and among its own detritus.

While I had been doing this task, dad had cut off the two calves and was busily wrapping them up in wax paper. “Go over and wash your hands under the faucet at the barn. When you’re finished doing that, I got two very nice cuts for your mother to get to cooking. I think with this, the two turkeys and big ham I brought home, we will be having one helluva Thanksgiving, don’t you?”

“The best!” I agreed, nodding my head, a big smile on my face.

“You did good today, son. I’m proud of you. Very proud.”

I felt like skipping all the way to wash my hands in the frigid water (I didn’t do that though, it was what little girls did when they were happy, and I was no little girl. I was a man now!) when he offered me the two packages and sent me on my way with a smile wink as he went back to the task at hand dressing out the rest of the carcass. So much was I in my own world that I hadn’t even noticed that the snow had begun to fall harder and it wasn’t even dinner time.

The weatherman never gets it right.

As I walked I thought about how this Thanksgiving would be the most important day of my life. Every one that came before, or after it, would not compare. Some things would be the same, sure. The family would come over and would be treated to a scrumptious feast prepared by my mother with covered dish contributions by way of my aunts, cousins and grandmother to have plenty of leftovers to appreciate in the days to come. At the head of the table would sit my dad and to his left would be my mother, and this year, I would sit at his right.

Everyone would complement the chefs and their expertise and wizardry in the kitchen, especially when it came to the fresh, roasted meat I now held in my hands that still had to be cooked. Our family, immediate and otherwise knew the source from whence it came and no one complained. It had always been so as long as anyone could remember and it would always be a tradition in our household.

Sure, we still held dear many customs and traditions dear that other households across America that celebrate the holiday do. Me, my dad, my uncles and male cousins would get

together for a friendly game of touch football in the frosty afternoon (after our near to bursting bellies shrank down, of course) when dinner was done, everyone would take home covered plates with food they came with and didn’t and mom would put away more of the same in the fridge to be eaten over a course of days. Then there would be the obligatory entertainment fare we liked to watch on television, a college football game, or two, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and I’m sure some cable network would be doing a twenty-four hour marathon of A Christmas Story. Ralphie and his Red Rider BB gun were immortal in many households, including our own. Then we would all go to bed, probably late, all cozy and comfy thinking of all the good times and memories made that day before sliding into a tryptophan induced coma.

This year would be different for me. Not only did I bring new meat to the table, but I would also be able to say grace before the meal. I would deliver a heartfelt thanks to our Lord for the blessings he had bestowed upon us and for sending his lesser creatures our way to become sustenance for us by his unending graces.

I made it to the house and stopped. Looking up into the snowy sky, I silently thanked God for all that he had blessed me with and for my family. Then shifting the packages of meat in my hands, I smiled and went inside.

By Ken King

From: United States

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