Thanksgiving Day to You

I have to tell you that this day means many different things to me. Most of all it means that I am thankful for the family and friends I have. I’m most thankful to my beautiful wife and my five daughters. Of course I have to add my first grand daughter to that list too. Life has not been easy for all of us here in the Papamoka home but it has been a blessing to see the family come together as one around one sister to show her that we are and will always be one family forever. All of the past is gone and we see only the brightest of futures.

My Mom passed away in 1993, and Dad in 2003, so I don’t have this day to spend with them but I do have it to spend with my babies and my wife and her family. I remember as a kid the Thanksgiving Holiday, Dad would be doing most of the cooking for the main event but my Aunt Kitty that lived with us always made the cranberry sauce the night before. I was just a kid but she let me watch, she would let me stir the berries before they boiled, then she would ask me to back away as she strained them over a sifter. Then she would take me up on her lap as they cooled and tell me what my Dad would make for all of us the next day. Mom was sick for many years with heart disease and multiple back operations and Aunt Kitty took me on as her own. She never had any children. Later on she took on my little sister as her own and we grew up to be better people for it. Those were some tought times but those were also some good times filled with many memories, some good, some not so good. It’s all in the past now and the good memories are more prevalent now.

I made cranberry sauce with my thirteen year old and with my eleven year old daughter from scratch to travel with us to family far away. We made whole berries and we made jellied cranberry sauce. I like to do it every year before Thanksgiving Day with as many of them that want to make it with me. I like to call it building memories and a life long lesson for them to pass on to their babies some day when I am long gone. The day is not just about having a turkey and all the fixings that goes with it, it’s also about the love of family and working together to make the day and meal all that more special. Food is just food if it does not have the added spice of love added to it from the people you love that made it for you for this special day.

Enjoy the day with the people you love and realize how much your life is just that much different from knowing the person that passes you the potatoes, or the squash, or the turkey, or the gift of memories built into the cranberry sauce. If you have family and friends to share this day with then you are blessed. Be thankful for it.

Happy Thanksgiving Day to you and your family and friends. I wish you love and happiness on this day.

Now shut the damn computer off and interact with your family and friends! Don’t make me raise my voice! Don’t make me tell you twice!!!

Happy Thanksgiving Day to you and yours…

Papamoka

Fathers Day and Real Dad’s

Fathers Day is here again and all I can think of is my own Dad that passed away in 2003. My Dad was a good man, an honest man, a hardworking man that happened to have seven kids. He was Irish and the television was broken so I’m not giving any excuses for a large family.

Dad loved his family and he showed it as best he could and the only way that he knew how. He never bought expensive toys for himself. No golf clubs, no motorcycles, no fancy clothes or shoes. Matter of fact he used to go to a shoe repair shop to get his heals and souls replaced. This was a Dad that dropped his paycheck in Mom’s hand and he hadn’t signed his own name on it in over thirty years. Mom signed, cashed, and paid the families bills. What the family needed he provided the means. Mom handled the details of how to get it done with the money they had.

I recall the good times more so than my older siblings and to me he just wasn’t the man that made and enforced the rules of a large family but he was also my friend. My Dad was not the same Dad that my sisters knew. Dad loved his daughters but he never understood how the female mind worked so he stepped aside and let Mom handle the alien species of the household. He wasn’t the same Dad that my older brothers knew either. With each one of his seven children he had only his own personal way of dealing with his children. He wasn’t a Doctor Phil Dad but he gave it his best shot. Where he may have failed in some of his children’s eyes he succeeded in others. Seven children are seven very different people. Each one of his children had a very different relationship with him. Some of us took to heart what he was all about and some of us chucked the bird at him for being over protective and concerned when Mom was crying.

We all grew up, we all survived Dad at his worst and Dad at his best. What I love to remember most is that he loved all his children no matter our faults and failures. We were and are all his babies and that is what a true Dad is all about.

Dad became frail after Mom died. He ventured back up north from Florida. When he started to decline we took care of Grampa Jack as best we could. When Alzheimer’s took over his mind I know that he and I were still a team. Till his last day on this Earth he still looked at me as a friend, someone he could be comfortable with and a calm place to be in a storm of confusion. He didn’t know my name but I knew his. That is all that mattered.

Being the baby boy it was he and I that bonded the most. I will never have a friend that will accept me no matter my faults like my Dad did and frankly I never want to replace the friendship that my Father and I had. Jack O’Keefe was my best friend and he was also my Dad. I loved him as a friend and also as my Dad. I can only hope that I can be half the man he was as a father.

Happy Fathers Day Dad!

I love you Dad and miss you my friend,

Matthew

Easter Is here, He has Risen

Religion is a funny thing. You have to believe in the unknown and accept it on faith. I appreciate all religions because I honestly believe that God accepts us all no matter what faith we follow. We are all of his children and that is what it is.

In the road of life your faith in God will be tested over and over again and you have to have the faith that the challenges presented to you are not just yours alone to get through. Your faith in your God is the same as the Muslim, the Hindu and the Jew. There is no one true God politically, but there is the God of your world that makes you act and behave as a believer in his message. Love of one self should be extended to your fellow man.

In the Christian faith, Jesus died on the cross with great pain and agony for all of our sins. He never asked us to be perfect or without sin. He simply gave his life for ours. That is a hero of our times to appreciate and glorify.

Celebrate life as it is where you are and be thankful for all the gifts you have as a person. Please do not forget that the gifts you have, some people do not. Compassion and forgiveness are part of the Easter and Passover season of holidays.

Talking to God is only a few muscle reactions from your mouth and voice box. Thanking him or her for the bounty you have is not a lot to ask.

Enjoy the festivities that are what Easter is all about, love of family. Partake of it and rejoice in the bounty that has been bestowed on your family.

For Christians it is far to easy to lose the message of Jesus Christ with the marketing of candy and Easter baskets. This is the time to appreciate his sacrifice for us as well.

Shut the damn computer off too! It is Easter Sunday...

Papamoka