Every Thanksgiving, I am reminded of my freshman year in college when my mother asked me to help her prepare our annual feast. My father drove me home from Ann Arbor after my last class and as soon as I walked in the door, Mother called, “Put on an apron, Lynn Ruth. I need you to bake the pies.”

“You want me to wash up the pots and pans, Mother,” I said. “I can’t cook anything but oatmeal.”

My mother emerged from the kitchen wiping her hand on a soggy dishtowel. “You can read, can’t you? I‘ve rolled the crusts. All you have to do is follow recipes for the fillings. I need to do the casseroles and knead the bread. I’m having sweet potatoes with marshmallows, green beans almandine and cauliflower in tomato sauce.”

“No one will have room for my pie if they eat all that with their turkey,” I said.

“Pies,” said my mother. “We’ll have two pumpkin, one apple and a lemon chiffon. I hope its enough.”

She paused and did some mental arithmetic. “I got a 25 pound turkey and two roasting chickens just in case.”

“Mother, if everyone manages to eat half the stuff you’re making, they won’t be able to move from the table before Chanukah,” I said. “Were you planning to donate the leftovers to St. Anthony’s Soup Kitchen?”

“Look at the time!” said my mother. “It’s five o’clock and you haven’t begun beating the eggs!”

“Why do we have to bake all the pies tonight?” I asked. “Won’t there be time enough in the morning?”

“We need to cut up the salad, make the Jell-O molds and prepare the cranberry relish tomorrow . You can whip the cream just before the guests arrive. The mix master won’t be free until then.

When I walked into the kitchen, I saw my mother’s cooking time schedule taped on the refrigerator and an outline of her table design on the dining room door. ”My goodness!” she exclaimed. “I FORGOT THE CENTERPIECE! Run over to Fennigers and buy some nice fall flowers to put in that copper vase. You can arrange them while we wait for the pies to bake.”

“Mama, “ I said. “Why are you going to so much trouble? Its just family. Everyone will be so busy eating they won’t notice if you serve them on an unfinished board.”

My mother blushed. “I like the table to look nice,” she said.

The next 24 hours were spent tasting a variety of relishes and vegetables to see if the seasoning was right, blending salad dressings, polishing silver, setting the table, putting out the wine and the water, rescuing the pies from the dog and basting the turkey. Our house smelled like a restaurant at rush hour and my mother looked like she'd been through the wars. At three thirty, Mama left me to whip the cream for my pies and set out the bread baskets while she freshened up. As soon as our guests arrived, my mother ushered us to the immense table she and I had put up in the living room. “Dinner is served!” she exclaimed.

In moments the room became a cacophony of silver ringing against china, water glasses filling, people chattering and the dog barking. My sister spilled gravy on my cousin’s sleeve and the dog bit my Uncle instead of his beef bone. My immense Aunt Celia tried to charm poor tiny Henry Black and he was so upset he tipped the cauliflower casserole into her lap. My cousin Ricky reached for the cranberry sauce and spilled it on the butter. My mother ‘s voice cut through the sound every few minutes. “Would anyone like more turkey? Sweet potato pie?”

Eventually, everyone was so full, they stared into space like stuffed pillows. My mother stopped bustling from platter to plate and her face fell. She looked at the half filled trays, the untouched rolls in the bread baskets and the remains of her pies and cakes. “No one ATE anything,” she cried and ran weeping from the room.

I followed her and to my amazement, she was staring out the kitchen window, her face a tragic mask. “All that work and no one ate a single thing,“ she whispered through her tears.

“Mama, those people demolished half a turkey, all the chicken, four pies, six casseroles and a tub of salad big enough to feed the patrons of the Rivoli Theater. You made enough food to feed the Fifth Battalion. That’s why you have leftovers.”

But my mother didn’t hear me. “When I was a little girl, we never had enough to eat,” she whispered. “My mother made dinner for all of us from one onion, a couple rotten potatoes and a bone she had begged from the butcher. She served us those vegetables flavored with bits of beef marrow and lots of watered down gravy on cracked plates from the Good Will. We finished our meal with milk we drank from empty jelly jars. I can still see us crouched around that table, using spoons to shovel that tasteless gruel into our starving bodies. We finished what food there was in five tiny minutes and after it was all gone, I can remember weeping because my tummy ached for more. When I cleared the table, I saw my mother standing at the stove, scraping the pot for her own meal.”

I looked at my mother, so intent and so very sad and my eyes filled with tears. ”Don’t cry, Mama,” I said, but she didn’t hear me.

“I promised myself that when I had a family, they would eat like royalty,” she whispered. “I would serve them on linen tablecloths with crystal goblets and my dining room would be a place of peace and beauty.”

She surveyed the kitchen filled with mountains of food her guests couldn’t finish. “But I guess I failed,” she said. “Help me put out the after dinner mints, Lynn Ruth.”

That was when I finally understood what all the food she cooked for us was about. It was a symbol of her tremendous love for her family and her need to protect us from the terrible suffering she had endured as an immigrant child during the depression. For the first time in my life I was truly thankful for the good things I had always taken for granted: the luxury of a comfortable home furnished for gracious living, the opportunity to go to college to realize my dreams and a calendar filled with things to enrich my life. “You gave us a very happy Thanksgiving, Mama,” I said. “That was the best meal I ever tasted.”

She dried her tears and her face beamed with pleasure. “Why thank you, Lynnie Ruth,” she said, and then she paused. “Do you think anyone would like a little sherbet? It’s so refreshing after a heavy meal.”