Sunday, December 19th, 2010

I realized that I did not post about my Thanksgiving! I was actually on break for a full week instead of just Thanksgiving day, but all my memories from that week are too jumbled to try and remember them all now, However, I do remember Thanksgiving. As always, my family and I had Thanksgiving dinner at my Tia Leticia's house. My dad's side of the family lives all the way in Missouri so they are hardly ever with us during Thanksgiving, so it was just my mom's side of the family this year. Since this is my first year in college I have never been away from them for this long. Walking into my tia's house it was exactly as I remembered and it surprised me how big my little cousin's were getting in such a short period of time. I spent most of the night with my tia Martha, she is my mom's youngest sister and one of my best friends, and it was great to catch up with her. I've noticed how much smaller my family is getting. Our dinners in the past year used to pack the house completely, but people have been moving away recently and although we still had around 20-30 people there, that is tiny compared to previous years. Thanksgiving started out to be a great night. I left with my cousins and my sister to go find this tree swing that one of my cousins wanted to take us too while my uncles were cooking dinner, but the end of the night changed my mood from happiness to sorrow. When we all got back the food was ready and we all headed upstairs with the rest of the family to eat. Before we ate my grandmother said a prayer like she does before all our family dinners. She spoke in spanish, but slowly so that my sister and I could keep up. She spoke about how blessed we are to still have each other. however, she also spoke about having the lord bless our family with health. I found out that night that my grandmother had not been taking care of her kidney problems that she has been having, and hasn't even gone on dialysis yet. She desperately needs a kidney transplant and has not been listening to her doctor's orders for the foods she should be eating, they cant speak to her in spanish and it is not the same when my mom or her siblings try and translate for her because she doesn't understand just how important the instructions are. On top of that I found out that one of my cousin's just got uterine cancer and because of how long she waited to get checked has to get her whole uterus taken out, and although the surgery will hopefully be helpful, she will never be able to have children, she is only 25. Thanksgiving just went downhill from there. It was wonderful to be able to see my family, but by the end of the night no one left happy.