Today is Columbus Day and Canadian Thanksgiving. I’ve lived here for 47 years but I am still a Canadian citizen, and though I am just as Americanized as you, I simply cannot ignore my homeland’s Thanksgiving Day. Dinner certainly will not be an elaborate table setting or a multi-course meal, but perhaps a turkey potpie and some pumpkin spice pudding. It will be a quiet time to be thankful for the few special people in my life and my little companion, Buddy. The other day I wrote about being thankful for being blessed with good health … my mom suffered with poor health her entire life and her later years were fraught with excruciating pain from her many medical maladies, so being healthy is important to me. This post is dedicated to my neighbor Marge Aubin. I am thankful that she encouraged me to write again, and if not for her insistence, I would never have started blogging, nor been able to achieve today’s 172nd post at WordPress. But Marge was always there for my mom and me through the years.

Let me take you back to Canadian Thanksgiving – October 9, 2000. Despite having lived in the U.S. for some 34 years as of that date, my mom still would insist on making the traditional holiday fare, even though it was just the two of us now – turkey breast with all the trimmings and homemade pumpkin pie. In her later years, my mom did acquiesce and get fruit pies from the grocery store, even Christmas mincemeat pie. She finally reluctantly decided that lemon meringue pie from “the outside” passed muster. But not pumpkin pie – that simply would not do. She did not cook up the pumpkin pulp, and, like most cooks, opted for Libby’s canned pumpkin, but she mixed in her own version of spices and her other must-have was made-from-scratch cream-cheese pie crust. Mom had been salivating over the taste of this anticipated pumpkin pie, which she made for both the Canadian and American Thanksgiving holidays. The day before, I asked if she would like me to make the pie and received raised eyebrows from her, which was not unexpected since I’d never made a pie in my life. My query really meant “would my assistance be appreciated?” and I thought my question was reasonable given the fact that my mom had had carpal tunnel surgery on Labor Day and at only six weeks post-op, her dominant hand was still a little shaky. She shook her head and vehemently said “I’m fine, really” so the subject was considered closed.

When I left for work that morning, Mom was mixing up her ingredients, and the kitchen smelled heavenly, just from the raw ingredients mixture. But the rest of the story with the pumpkin pie was nothing short of miraculous.

After making the pie crust bottom from scratch and pouring in her pumpkin mixture, she popped the pie into the hot oven. This stove was fairly new and my mom didn’t really care for it. She had started relying on her cane more and more in the house, and the lower oven was hard to reach into with ease. For years, we had a double oven and the bottom oven was used merely for storing pots and pans. The timer buzzed and my mom opened the oven door and grabbed her oven mitts. As she pulled the very hot pie out of the oven, the Pyrex dish slid across the shiny cookie sheet and because her dominant hand was not 100% due to the recent surgery, the pie plate and its contents went crashing to the floor, the hot gooey mess miraculously missing my mom’s legs by mere inches. Besides her multiple orthopedic issues, my mom had battled cellulitis in her legs for nearly 30 years. The smallest scratch or break to the skin on her legs would immediately cause a strep infection, treatable only by potent antibiotic pills or sometimes I.V. infusion, so she had to be very careful not to let anything come in contact with her legs.

Miraculously, what was left of the hot pumpkin was running all over my mom’s shoes, the kitchen floor and the colonial braided rug, but her legs were unscathed. Unlike you or me, my mom could not simply remove her shoes and walk down the hall to slip on another pair to begin cleaning up the mess. Due to her many orthopedic operations when she was younger, her feet were fused and she could not stand on her own two feet without wearing her hand-made orthopedic shoes. So, still shaking from the ordeal and the reality of what damage the hot pie could have caused to her legs, she walked carefully over to the phone, trying not to slide on the floor and called our next-door neighbor Marge. We had exchanged house keys years before and luckily Marge was home and was over to the house in less than a minute after receiving the call. Marge merely threw on a robe over her pajamas and let herself in the door. Aghast at the mess, and seeing my mom, who was still so shook up over the incident, Marge immediately went into action. She threw off her robe and it landed on the deacon’s bench and she helped guide my mom over to the table where they scraped the pumpkin pie mixture off her shoes before it could stain them. Next, Marge asked for a scrub bucket and rag and bent down on the floor to gather up the remnants of pumpkin, pie crust and shards of glass, which stretched across half the kitchen. The mess was cleaned up and despite my mom’s protestations, Marge even scrubbed the kitchen floor and sponged off the braided rug.

After that episode, all pumpkin pie-handling in and out of the oven was done by the able and willing assistant, a/k/a me. My mom was eternally grateful to Marge for helping her out that morning, as was I. For years, she would tell Marge that only a true friend would rush over so quickly and bail her out, and scrub her floor clad only in dainty little baby doll pajamas. That was a Thanksgiving that neither of us ever forgot.