I think I’m going to blame the Bible for my feelings today; I’m pretty sure that’s what triggered it.

No, not the *actual* Bible, before anyone tries to clutch their pearls! I’m referring to my mother’s old (very old) recipe book, really a big collection of recipes stuck pellmell into a spiral bound adhesive photo album. I’ve described it before here. We always affectionately called it the Bible. Anyway, the real charm of this book is that it’s got recipes from so many different people, so many different parts of my mother’s and my lives, and many such recipes are in those people’s handwriting.

I was looking for the recipe for pumpkin mousse, which I am making for Thanksgiving tomorrow, and stumbled across the recipe for what we called minuellas; they are similar to silver dollar pancakes but fluffier, pan fried until crispy on both sides, dusted with powdered sugar when they come out. My mother used to make these all the time for gatherings with friends, as my parents often had game nights at our house in the earlier, happier days of their marriage. I haven’t eaten a minuella in over twenty years. I’m thinking the time is ripe for me to try making them, maybe in honor of Hanukkah since it’s a fried food, which we traditionally eat on that holiday.

But I digress. What gave me pause this morning upon seeing that recipe in the book isn’t that I found it. It’s that it was written in my father’s handwriting, not my mother’s. When I told my husband about it, he suggested that maybe it was actually his recipe instead of hers, but, I am sure that’s not the case. My father wasn’t much for cooking, and it’s also an Italian recipe, which is my mom’s side, not my dad’s side. So, I allowed myself to go back in time and think about what might have led to having the recipe written by my fathers hand; I suspect that, in the middle of my mother making the minuellas, my father asked my mother about the recipe and wrote down what she told him while she was at the stove cooking. The vivid image in my mind’s eye brought such warmth, this feeling that before it all went to Hell, there was some wholesome goodness between them, among our little family, for a little while. I could almost smell the vanilla, hear the sizzle in the pan. I could almost see him sitting there at the kitchen table which now sits in my own house, dutifully writing, adjusting his thick glasses on the bridge if his nose much like I do.

Then I was doused with the cold realization that this recipe is the only thing I have with my father’s handwriting on it.

He had exceptional penmanship.

I’m blaming the Bible for my feelings, but I am sure Thanksgiving being tomorrow has its own bit of influence. I find myself missing my father today, which strikes me as unusual because he’s been gone so long (and the relationship became so fraught before then) that I don’t usually experience those feelings coming to the surface and spilling over. It is tempting to try to swallow and ignore those feelings, but, in the interest of mental health and such, I’m leaning into them instead. It’s okay to miss people when they’re gone (literally or figuratively), even if life with them was complicated when they were here. I have good things to remember about him; I just have to let myself remember those things. It’s hard, because I’ll admit there is not a lot, and what there is was skewed and manipulated and otherwise shoved away. But I know that it’s all in there. The handwritten recipe reminded me today.

I told my husband today that I’m a lot more like my father than my mother. That may have its pitfalls, but overall I like to think I’m made of the best parts of him. And I am truly grateful for that.

Wishing everyone a happy Thanksgiving and a holiday season full of warmth and goodwill.