I dreaded the first Thanksgiving without my mom so much that I ditched the extended family ritual and ran away to Europe for the second time in 2009. Thanksgiving does not exist in Europe and it was a relief to walk down a street and see no hint whatever of turkeys or pilgrims or doors festooned with raffia-bundled ears of Indian corn.

I spent the 25th eating Thai food and washing it down with icy pints of 1664 with the coolest teenager ever. We spent days walking and pausing to look closer at some things and to take pictures of others. We threw caution to the wind and actually ate the beans and salty slabs of pork that came with our eggs at breakfast and enjoyed the ambiance of the basement breakfast room of the B&B that included the loud arguments of the Bulgarian cooks, which were always broken up (much to our disappointment) by the big Greek man who owns the B&B. We visited with some of my students who are in the study abroad program this semester and I made up my mind once and for all to put my name on the list to start teaching one semester in London each year starting in 2011 when my sweet schmoopie leaves for college.

I carried some of my mom's ashes with me throughout the trip. I had intended to scatter them from the Eiffel Tower the night before we returned home, which is what my dad wanted, but when the moment came I couldn't do it. I can't explain why, I just couldn't. So the ashes came home with me. The day after we got back my dad called me up and said "You brought Mom's ashes back with you, didn't you?" I have no idea how he knew. It wasn't like I had protested scattering her remains in Paris in the first place -- I thought it was a fine thing to do. But I couldn't let them go and he knew it before I did.