November Mornings.

November is a time for reminiscing, for me. The brilliant colors of fall have crumbled brown and dusty to the ground and the mornings are frosty around the edges. The geese in the cove are thinking of moving on and I'm thinking that soon the lake will be getting frosty around the edges and they'll be gone.

It's a time for remembering, and some of those memories are warm and some  make you  pull your sweater closer, light the fire and pour a cup of tea. And that makes me think of my mother and father.

Long gone now, I find it interesting that the older I get, the more I find myself wishing they were around to talk to. To be able to pick up a phone and say, "What do you think"?  about this or that. Or to draw on their memories, perhaps to shore up my own memories, or to remember others I've forgotten. To sit beside my mother and say, "I worry about this or that, do you think it'll be alright?" I miss their warmth, and their thoughts about things that matter.

It's not that they were perfect parents. If they had been perfect they would have had a perfect child - and that didn't happen. In fact, if they had been perfect, I would probably have picked up my back pack and left home before I was ten. I think perfection would be very hard to live with. I think perfection by it's very definition is imperfect. But that's another thought.

My mother and father were present. Whenever I needed them, and sometimes when I was sure I didn't, they were there. They seemed to have the right answers at the time, and although some of them probably weren't, they ultimately worked for me. I could rely on them to never consciously let me down, and I know now that whatever decisions they made for me and my sibling they were made with the best of intentions - right or wrong. And, in retrospect, they were mostly right. Although being imperfect, like me, some of them would probably raise a few eyebrows in the 21st. Century Manual of Parenting.

"They meant well." Sounds trite, but it actually has great depth, in fact. It won't fly in many circles, but in mine it does. Everything they did for us, for better or for worse, was done from their own toolboxes of ancestral experience, and done with the right intentions. They never meant any harm to come to any of us. And isn't that what it's all about?

That thought stayed with me as I was raising my own children - imperfectly, but with the very best of intentions, always. It's made it easier to forgive myself when things didn't turn out the way I had intended, or hoped. And I thank them for that.

So, on a cold November evening, it's the memories of my mother dancing until dawn with my father in his military uniform -  the smell of her Blue Grass perfume, or his Old Spice, that color my memories, filling me still with childish adoration. It's the memories of my father's WW2 stories, the sinking of the HMS Birmingham, and the Red Cross ship full of nurses they were escorting, helping to shape my thoughts in the realms of right and wrong, my mother chasing me with a hairbrush to enforce a little discipline with a splat! whop! on my behind, and her vague opinions about the latest boy-flame in my life - always right.

And now, as a cold November moves towards the warmth of Thanksgiving Day, with it's candles, pies, roasted turkey and dressing, I feel very thankful for them. I'm glad they were here with me; and I feel at peace knowing that they're with Drew in Heaven.

I hope you have a lovely Thanksgiving with all the people you love the best around you.