Thanksgiving morning I got up, put the turkey in at six like always, set two pies to cool on the rack, and my two children came down the stairs in their good clothes, and my little girl asked, are we seeing Grandpa today. And I realized the person my Daddy was really losing was not just me.
He was losing his grandbabies too.
In all the hurt of being pushed aside, I had almost forgotten that Darlas broom had swept away not just his daughter but his grandchildren, the babies he used to bounce on his knee, who had been asking for months why Grandpa did not want to see them anymore.
And that Thanksgiving morning, looking at my childrens hopeful faces, I decided that whatever Darla thought of me, my children deserved their grandfather, and he deserved them, and I was not going to let her steal that from either generation without one honest try.
So I did not go alone with my Tupperware. I loaded up the turkey and the pies, and I dressed my children in their Sunday best, and we drove to Grandpas house together, all three of us, and we knocked on the door.
Darla opened it with her smile ready. But before she could speak, my little girl called out, past her, Grandpa, we made you a pie, we miss you.
And from his chair, my Daddy heard his grandbabys voice, and something in him that Darlas broom could never reach came roaring back to life. He was up out of that chair before Darla could stop him, and he pushed past her, and he dropped to his knees on that porch and gathered my children into his arms and wept.
Darla said something about resting, about family time. My Daddy, holding his grandchildren, said the truest thing I ever heard him say: These are my family. This is my family. And I have missed too much of them already.
He came home with us that Thanksgiving. He could resist a lot, my worn-down Daddy, but he could not resist his grandbabies asking why he did not love them anymore. That question broke the spell for good.
He held those children all day at my table. He got down on the floor and played. He read them stories. He was Grandpa again, the real one, the one Darla had swept into a corner.
And a man who has remembered his grandchildren does not forget them again. He found the strength, with his family around him, to set his life right, so that he would never again miss a Thanksgiving or a Sunday or a bedtime story.
Mama raised me right, and I am raising my babies right too, to love their Grandpa. That love, it turned out, was the one thing strong enough to wake him all the way up. He comes every Sunday now, and the first thing he does, every time, is scoop up those grandbabies. Best Thanksgiving we ever had, the one that gave the children back their Grandpa.