It’s that time of year again. Time for families to gather and eat turkeys and pass out in food comas in front of the tv watching football games. Thanksgiving is a family time. Unfortunately, not everyone has a joyous time at Thanksgiving because they either don’t have any family left, or maybe they are estranged from their family they do have. One of my friends is going the be alone this Thanksgiving for the first time in seven years because he and his long time girlfriend split up back in March. He’s picking up a shift at the security job where he works since he doesn’t have any dinners to go to.

I don’t know which is worse, to not be able to be around your family for one reason or another — some legitimate, some petty as hell — or to simply have no family to gather with anymore. Budge and I fall into the latter group. I grew up having great Thanksgivings. In fact, one of the only things I found somewhat beneficial about having divorced parents was the fact I got to eat TWO Thanksgiving meals.

For the first few years of my life, starting once I was big enough to follow along, I went hunting with Daddy and some friends and family on Thanksgiving morning. Thanksgiving has traditionally been the opening day for rabbit season in South Carolina, and Daddy had a pack of beagles he loved to hear run rabbits. He would pick me up early in the morning from Mama’s, if I hadn’t spent the night at his house, then we would hunt for a few hours, and he would take me back to Mama’s so I could wash up and we could go to wherever we were having Thanksgiving lunch. We had choices depending on which great-aunts were cooking that year, but they all could cook better than anyone else I knew.

After lunch, Mama and I would go to Fountain Inn where Mama would drop me off with Papa and Granny Wham. Papa, Uncle Larry, and I would watch football together in the den. Lots of years, I didn’t get to see much playing time because I would fall into a turkey induced deep sleep for a couple of hours. I’d wake up once Daddy and Teresa, my stepmother, got there though. Then it would be time for Thanksgiving Meal Round Two. Granny laid out quite a spread for Thanksgiving supper. I had no problem eating that second meal though.

No matter how much I had eaten at lunch, I always had room for Granny Wham’s bone dry turkey and my own pan of dressing. Yes, I got my own small pan of dressing cooked for me at Thanksgiving and Christmas because I didn’t like onions, so Granny Wham made me my own little pan without onions. Drove Daddy crazy, but Granny didn’t want to hear it. Aunt Cathy was always first in line to fix her plate. That was because she had to be the first to pick which yeast roll or biscuit she wanted. That’s just the way it was. Drove Daddy crazy, but Granny didn’t want to hear it.

When I became a teenager and started dating, things got a little complicated as I now had a girlfriend who wanted to eat with her family and mine. So, for a couple of years, I ate THREE and every once FOUR Thanksgiving meals on Thanksgiving Day. That did strain my belt loops and I had to learn to pace myself. Granny noticed and made a unilateral decision. She moved our Thanksgiving meal to the Sunday after Thanksgiving. For the rest of my teenage years and into my twenties, that’s when we ate Thanksgiving.

Then came 1995. Granny Wham had a stroke in July and Papa Wham died three days later from the shock. Teresa took over the family meals. I’ll say this about my stepmother, she can cook. She can cook up a storm. I waddled away from her table many times in my life. We still had Thanksgiving on Sunday after Thanksgiving. It did make things easier. I got to eat with Mama, and then go eat with my girlfriend.

Sometime along the way, Mama started cooking Thanksgiving at her house. Mama could cook, too. (Does anyone see why I was such a fat kid growing up?) When Budge and I got married, we would eat lunch or supper with her Dad and Sandy and Sandy’s family, then eat with Mama for the other time slot. At least that’s what we did until we stopped eating Thanksgiving with Dad and Sandy for some years, but that’s a story for another time, and it’s really Budge’s story to tell, not mine, so you’ll probably never see it here.

Then, Mama’s health started failing and she no longer felt up to cooking a full Thanksgiving meal and doing all the prep work and clean up it required, even with Budge and I helping. That’s when we started eating Thanksgiving lunch at Ryan’s Steakhouse. It was a buffet more than a steakhouse and they were open on Thanksgiving Day at 10:00 am. We’d get there about 10:30 am and eat plenty and not have to clean up anything. It was great.

Then, faster than I could process it, Granny Wham was gone. She hadn’t cooked the meal in several years by that time, but she was there, and she was the heart of the family after Papa Wham died, then she was gone. Then, not long enough later, Mama was gone, too. Thanksgiving just wasn’t the same anymore. It didn’t help that Teresa decided to combine Thanksgiving and Christmas meals into one date because all of us were grown and had our own families and it was nearly impossible for everyone to get together twice in such a short period as Thanksgiving to Christmas.

With Mama gone and us not really associating with Dad and Sandy, that left Budge and I to our own devices on Thanksgiving. For a number of years, we ate Thanksgiving lunch at our friend Laura’s house with her family, but COVID did that in, among other things. So it was down to just Budge and me. These years, Budge has taken over and we have our own Thanksgiving tradition to celebrate. We get up and watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade until all the Broadway shows have done their part. Then, we go to Cracker Barrel about 11:00 am and eat their Thanksgiving special. It’s not Granny Wham, Mama, or Teresa, but it’s not terrible.

After we eat, we ride around in the car and, at noon, we listen to “Alice’s Restaurant” on WROQ 101.1. If you don’t know the song, it’s twenty minutes long, it’s a story, and it takes place around Thanksgiving. I love it and introduced Budge to it some years ago. After “Alice” goes off, we head home for naps. I’ll get up and watch some football while Budge piddles on her phone. Then, after dark, around 7:00 or 7:30, we’ll go to the Waffle House for Thanksgiving supper.

I really appreciate all Budge has done these last few years to create something for us to look forward to on Thanksgiving. I always get depressed badly this time of year because almost all my family is gone. Now, Budge’s Dad is gone, too, so it really is the two of us. She does a great job of giving our little family of two our own traditions to enjoy and, again, I appreciate all the work she does to make the day go well.

So, that’s this year’s Thanksgiving post. Hope you all have a great Thanksgiving wherever you are. Love y’all, and keep your feet clean.

Thirty years ago on this date, one of the brightest stars to ever shine in my sky fell and flamed out. Her name was Tina Dawn Messer, and she was the shortest known but most connected best friend I ever had.

I met Tina in 1993 when I was doing my student teaching with Mrs. Nell Cox at Pickens High School in Upstate South Carolina. She caught my eye, not because she was cute as a button — which she was — but because she was on crutches. I did a quick double take and realized why she was on crutches: her left leg was missing from the hip down. I smiled at her and went back to what I was doing, but something about her nagged at the back of my mind. See, I’m a storyteller, and as such, I also collect stories, and I was sure she had a good one, and I wanted to hear it.

We hit it off and eventually, I got to know the story. She was a freshman playing volleyball when she got strangely tired one day at practice. She could hardly keep going, so she went and sat down on the bleachers and started rubbing her legs. Behind her knee on her left leg, she felt a golf ball sized knot. She thought it was a muscle knot at first, but when it didn’t go away, her mama took her to the doctor who, worried as he was, sent her on to the hospital for some tests.

I’m sure you probably know where this is going. It wasn’t a muscle knot; it was lymphoma, and a mighty virulent strain. The doctors were honest with her from the beginning. They said she would need chemo and radiation, but if she really wanted to improve her chances of living, she needed to have her leg amputated, so, she did. By the time I met her, she was a senior and had been on crutches for three years give or take.

She was fitted with a prosthesis, but she said it hurt to wear it for long at a time and it was awkward, so she preferred her crutches. The first time I went to her house, she showed me her room including the big box of left shoes over in the corner which she had collected over time. I told her she needed to find a girl her size with a right leg amputation and they could split the cost of shoes. She’d never thought of that.

I was about to graduate Clemson and she was about to graduate high school. I came back up to Clemson after I graduated to go to her graduation. After that, we kept in touch, mostly through hours long phone calls, and even got together a few Saturdays. She was ridiculously easy to talk to and we found out we had many things in common. We both loved Southern Rock music and all the rest of the classic rock catalog. We even sent each other mixtapes of our favorites. She loved Fleetwood Mac, and at the time, I didn’t see the appeal. Now though, through Budge’s influence, they are one of my favorite groups. Her favorite song of all though was by the Eagles, “Take It to the Limit.”

We both loved cars, and we both loved adventure. Looking back on the person I was then and comparing him to the person I’ve become, I can’t imagine me loving adventure being such a homebody now, but back then, I was different. We used to ride around the mountains of Pickens County in her car. She had a new convertible Corvette that was burnt orange, had a highly tuned engine, and an automatic transmission. She drove like a bat out of hell. When she was in a playful mood, I’d end up halfway in the floorboard on the passenger side waiting to go off the side of the mountain.

She loved life in the way only those who know how close death is really can. We would ride around singing at the tops of our lungs, talking about things we wanted to do and places we wanted to go. It was great times.

It all came to a head one night in the summer. I was over at her house on a Saturday night. It was just the two of us. Her parents had gone out for supper and said they’d be home late. We sat on the couch talking about all kinds of things when I finally looked at her and said, “Tina, why don’t we leave your mom and dad a note, go pack the Corvette and head out to Vegas and get married? It’d be one grand adventure, and I can’t think of someone more closely matched to me to spend the rest of my life with!”

She turned away and I never will forget the look in her eye when she turned back to me. She said, “Shannon, that sounds wonderful, and in another life, I’d take you up on it in a heartbeat because we really were made for each other I think, but you have to know, I’m always in danger of a relapse, and I know you and your heart and if we were together, you wouldn’t be able to stand losing me, and you will lose me — sooner rather than later. I can’t do that to you.”

That was the last we spoke of it. I’ve had six engagements counting Budge, who didn’t waste time like the others did. The story of those engagements would be a post all its own, but don’t hold your breath waiting for it. I kid about it, but it isn’t really funny. I don’t count Tina as one of those, even if I technically did ask her to marry me in a way.

Anyway, that was the last time I was at Tina’s house. We kept talking on the phone and exchanging mixtapes, but we didn’t get together anymore. The cancer did come back; this time it was in her lung. I went to see her in the hospital and she was just as bubbly as ever. We talked like we always did. She had an operation to remove a lobe of her left lung. Then she had more chemo and radiation. It went away and it looked like she was out of the woods.

We didn’t talk as much after that. I think it was just too much for both of us. The calls got fewer and fewer until I didn’t hear much from her at all. Once I realized Tina and I would never be together, I got into what would become the worst relationship of my life. I don’t want to talk about it, but it was months of stupidity and insanity lasting from Christmas of 1993 to summer of 1994. I went from a perfect match for me to the worst thing I could ever have gotten mixed up in.

But I never forgot Tina, and one day in the fall of 1994, I got a call from her mama. She said Tina’s cancer had returned and this time, Tina had decided not to fight anymore and, as Tina put it, “Let them cut me up a piece at a time. It’s time to go.” I wanted to come see her immediately, but her mama said Tina wasn’t having ANY visitors. She was in bad shape and she didn’t want anyone seeing her in that condition.

That was the last I heard for a long time. I met Budge not too long after. We started dating in January of 1995 and I was happy. In the back of my mind though, I never forgot Tina. I wondered often how she was. I knew her iron will though, so I also knew trying to see her was futile.

1995 was a hell of a year for me. I lost my beloved grandfather in July, and buried one of my wrestlers who was killed in a terrible car wreck in August, and in March of the year, I lost two of my favorite cousins in a crash on I-85. It just was a rough time all around. Budge was the only thing keeping me going. Then came September 17, 1995. I got a call that morning. It was from Tina’s hospice nurse. She asked to speak to Shannon Wham. I told her that was me. She said she had the sad news to tell me Tina had passed away just a few hours before surrounded by her mama, daddy, and brother. The nurse said she was going through Tina’s instructions of who to notify and my name was the first on the list. I thanked her and hung up the phone.

I didn’t go to the funeral. I had been to three funerals already that year, and I knew it was just a box holding what was left of a jar of clay that once was Tina. I kept her picture on my desk at home. I had one of my artistic students draw me a portrait of her from a picture I had. In it I told him to give her back her leg and give her angel’s wings. I kept that portrait over my desk at school for five years before I finally took it down.

It’s passingly strange, but in the early years of our dating and marriage, Budge was kind of jealous. She didn’t like discussing my former girlfriends. Still, she never said a word to me about having Tina’s picture or the portrait at school. I could talk about her as much as I wanted and Budge never got mad or even lightly upset. I was thankful for that because, deliriously happy as I was with Budge, I still missed Tina. There was something about her I couldn’t forget and Budge told me I didn’t have to.

To this day, though, I have a hard time sitting through “Take It to the Limit” if it comes on the radio. Budge always turns it soon as she hears the opening bars. Tina was something special. Nineteen was way to young for her to leave, but I’ll always remember her at the wheel of her Corvette, wind mussing her short hair, radio blasting around the mountains of Pickens. I miss her still.

Love y’all and keep those feet clean!

Today is the twelfth anniversary of my mother’s passing. I would have thought back before all this that I would be able to put it behind me, but I think I was kidding myself. Everyone grieves differently and at different stages and levels over time. For me, Mama’s absence is still a hole that aches in a mostly dull, but sometimes razor sharp way. I don’t devolve into uncontrollable sobs like I once did. Tears still come, but they are the kind that slide down my cheek. Sometimes, the sobs are there, but they are not as prevalent as they used to be.

Growing up with Mama, we were extremely loving towards one another. We rarely had any cross words with each other. We always told each other we loved one another anytime one of us was going to leave, “Just in case.” That remains a source of happy memories for me. Now though, I dream about Mama. I’m sure most would think that was wonderful, and so would I except for one problem: Mama is always angry with me or scared of me in my dreams.

Without fail, she is either disappointed at something I’ve done, or sometimes, she is just downright angry at me for something. Unfortunately, as is the case sometimes with dreams, I don’t know what I’ve done to upset her so. Other times, she cowers from my presence as if I were going to hurt her. I never once in the years we were together, ever raised a hand or even my voice at my mother. Sure, we had spats, especially when I was a teenager and right after college, but I always definitely knew what the source was. In my dreams, I never do. It’s something that haunts me when I wake from one of those dreams. Most of the time, I can’t remember the dream, but I just remember Mama being mad at me.

I do have some dreams about Mama when she isn’t angry with me or something else, but those are very few and far between. The factor that binds all those dreams is that, for a moment, I forget Mama has died. I’ll go through the dream and suddenly, I’ll realize Mama isn’t going to be there when I wake up. That knowledge usually causes me to wake up. I’m always sad then.

I know I write a lot about Mama and I would imagine sometimes the people who read my blog are tired of the constant talk, but I miss her terribly. For the first twenty-five years of my life, she was the most important person in it, then Budge came along, and they became like the Trinity at the top of my life, two people sharing the same space. When I lost my job as a librarian, it wasn’t quite so bad because I had Mama to look after. I went down to her house several times a week. We went to Chick-Fil-A on Fridays for chicken minis before I took her to the grocery store. She loved the grocery store, any store really, and it was a sad day when she couldn’t go anymore.

With Mama gone and Ima gone as well, it feels like my purpose is gone. My job wasn’t gone, it had just morphed into taking care of Mama. When she died, a lot of my purpose for being died with her. I’ve had a devil of a time trying to find one since then. I did have a renewed sense of purpose for the time Dad was in the veteran’s home with dementia. Going to see him twice a week gave me something important to do and someone to take care of. Sadly, Dad is gone now, too.

I keep on going though. It’s honestly not as hard as it was like ten years ago because it’s not as raw and stomach churning. I reached the stage of acceptance in my grief cycle, but it doesn’t mean I miss her any less, nor does it mean the ache goes away.

Think about me today if you have the time and remember, I love y’all, and keep your feet clean.