"You, Me, and that Damned Turkey" by Nyssa Owens
Photo Credit: Mitch Gaiser licensed through Unsplash
Content warning: This work contains discussions of eating disorders and mentions suicide that may be triggering for some readers.
You, Me, and that Damned Turkey
We’re sitting in the living room, Granny’s living room, with the pastor (ha! A pastor, you would’ve loved that… “dripping with sarcasm,” she says). He’s sitting on that couch. You know that couch. The one that’s now sitting in my boyfriend’s office. The one we used to watch Grease a thousand times on and sing loudly about those summer nights. The one we used to pull out the thin lumpy mattress underneath it and pretend like we were somewhere else. Somewhere not in Kansas. You would whisper to me in the dark: I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.
He’s talking about memories we have. Twisting our own truths away from the truth. I hate pastor-led funerals. Why can’t I tell us about you, myself? I have better words for you than he ever will. I knew you. I have many memories of you…I’m sure of it.
But the one that keeps replaying in my head is quite cruel. I think it was Christmas, maybe Thanksgiving. Yes, Thanksgiving. Where you insisted you were vegan while carving the turkey. Plucking and pulling meat into your mouth.
“I’m vegan,” you said between mouthfuls of flesh (Food, glorious food…flesh shaved off the dead ones ).
I don’t remember how we arrived at that topic of conversation. Just you and me. In that living room. On that couch (Summer lovin’ had me a blast…).
You looked at me and said, “Do you remember that care basket your mom sent me while I was in the mental hospital?”
I nod yes.
“What a load of shit that was. So fucking stupid,” you said.
I don’t say anything. It wasn’t just my mom that made that basket; hand picking out everything it in it. It was me too. Was I fucking stupid for believing at the age of ten that you would be moved by a care basket? Was I fucking stupid for believing that a care basket could fix you? I purposely didn’t choose any Halloween candy to put in it. Only Halloween socks- with ghosts on them, headbands- with bouncy candy corns, earrings- with witch’s hats. You weren’t allowed to have outside food in the eating disorder wing.
But I was fucking stupid. For thinking it was okay to not talk about it. For thinking it was okay to pretend you didn’t exist in those moments where you were back at the mental institution. For thinking one day this would all just disappear, and you’d be “normal,” and we could be the cousins that raised their children together.
I’ve replayed that conversation over and over again in my head since my mom woke me up that Saturday morning to tell me you passed. Did you mean to be that cruel? Did you know it was also me who sent that? Why, years later, did that basket still matter to you?
And then I realize, not in that moment, nor a year later, but years down the line from that conversation and years down the line from your death. You were angry at your body, not at us.
And now I get it. That A-ha! moment, years too late. A holiday meant to gorge yourself is not an appropriate holiday for a person living with an eating disorder. It wasn’t malice that reclaimed that memory for you, it was anger. Anger in the fact that my mom and I can enjoy a holiday, like Thanksgiving, with no repercussions or thought to how our bodies would react. We could and did eat the turkey, the mashed potatoes, the green beans, the creamed corn, the rolls. While you sat there wanting all of it and knowing you shouldn’t, or maybe couldn’t, have any of it. I didn’t think about how at dessert I ate a piece of pie from every single pie we had, while you ate a sliver of yours, measuring out your whipped cream like an extra dollop would kill you. Why didn’t we say anything? Why did we think it was okay for us to act that way in front of you?
You weren’t telling me the basket was fucking stupid, no. You were telling me my body was fucking stupid for being able to enjoy my indulgent meal without thinking how my body was going to throw it up later.
But I was fucking stupid. For thinking it was okay to not talk about it. For thinking it was okay to pretend you didn’t exist in those moments where you were back at the mental institution. For thinking one day this would all just disappear, and you’d be “normal,” and we could be the cousins that raised their children together. For thinking after the news of your death, that maybe, this was what relief felt like. For thinking that you were selfish. You were never the selfish one. The selfish one is me. The selfish one is the one still living.
Nyssa Owens is an M.A. candidate in English with Kansas State University. Apart from writing, Nyssa enjoys 80’s music, puzzling, and spending time with her significant other and her corgi, Floyd. This is Nyssa’s first publication.