The Wish Bone

Now that the contest is behind us, I have a story about 'The Wish Bone'

The remembrance of this story came over me the other day when I was cleaning the kitchen. I was washing the counter top and faucet of the sink, and noticed the wish bone from Thanksgiving was still sitting there, when putting away the food that day, my sister Beth and I were picking at the meat on the turkey, pulling some off to put on the plate and some that never made it because it found our mouth first.

Beth was kind enough to get the turkey ready for me for roasting, since I usually cook only a turkey breast and she had more experience with a whole turkey then me, I regress here to tell you, I once cooked a whole turkey with "THAT" little bag still inside, I had removed the neck and stuck my hand inside the neck looking for "THAT" bag but didn't find it, until it was time to serve the turkey and found that they put "THAT" bag in the other end! A-dah... what a dork I felt like!

Anyway, during our cleaning up, Beth found the wish bone in the turkey and pulled it out, cleaned it off and set it on the back of the sink kind of straddling the back of the faucet. It stayed there drying until the other day when the cleaning episode I mentioned earlier came about and the memory of another wish bone hit me from my past.

I picked it up and looked at it and just started crying, the flood of emotions was uncontrollable, the memory of my recent post about burning the bacon and feeling my mothers presence that day combined with how it was near the anniversary of my sister's death causing me to be melancholy.

It was the first Thanksgiving after our mother had died and my sister Priscilla was doing her best to make it as normal as possible for us all, these are thing that go unrecognized sometimes until its too late to say thank you for. With the anniversary of Priscilla's death coming up, I wished I had told her more often how much I appreciated all she had done for us younger kids in the family, and now that I am grown I can see all the sacrifices she made for us.

I remember that Thanksgiving from years ago and Priscilla taking the turkey out of the oven and basting it, it was so brown and pretty. I don't remember anything else about that day, the meal or who was there, but a few days later, I remember begging my dad to let me pull the wish bone. I don't know if I had ever done it before but I KNEW I just HAD to do it this time, I had a great BIG wish that I wanted to come true.

I don't know how I ended up talking him into doing it with me, but he did and I closed my eyes and wished and wished and wished as I pulled. I heard the snap and opened my eyes and I had the smaller half. I just broke down and cried, now my wish wasn't going to come true my little 8 year old mind had decided.

My Dad pulled me into his lap and stroked my hair and asked me what I had wished for, I blurted out that I had wished that Mommy was in heaven and I would see her again one day, and now my wish won't come true.

He hushed me and told me he was sure it would and when I asked him how he could know that he whispered in my ear, because I wished that what ever you wished for would come true.