This hasn't been a good year for many but I think my mother has had the worst year. The year started with her having a serious stroke and then is now ending with her having a devastating fall which she suffered a broken hip.

Thanks to the collective resourcefulness of the whole family mother has been in good hands since day one. After the in hospital care, she was kindly taken in by my friends at Masonic Rehab and immediately they treated her like a member of the family as they learned quickly how to retort to her sharp and sarcastic tongue. Its a good situation for me because not only do I get to see her but now my friends can see what I dealt with all my life, feel sorry for me and now understand why I'm the way I am.

Thanks to my being there for rehab clinic weekly, I also get to sit in on some of my mother's rehab sessions and torment her even more mentally while the staff torments her physically. That really makes it full spectrum rehab! Keep the mind and body working!

After she got there for the first time, Stephanie, one of the my PT friends (who is no longer there) said to me, "We've been going over your mother's personal goals and one of the things she said she'd like to be able to do is get well enough to make her special traditional family stuffing at Thanksgiving."

I waited for the punchline...or at least something more...

To the best of my recollection, my mother has no working knowledge of how to make real stuffing from scratch. As a matter of fact, I can only remember (and we know how THAT works) a handful of Thanksgivings at our house. My grandmother primarily hosted and duly destroyed this event.

I looked at my mother and thought she'd say something, but she got this look of sentiment on her face like she was now missing out on the ability.

Now while my mother was a decent cook, my ongoing need for weight control can attest to that, I can safely assure you that homemade traditional secret formula covert stuffing had absolutely nothing to do with it.

My eyes began to squint a little like what the heck is going on here.

"Stuffing?" I asked my mother.

"Yeah" she said sadly, "I always loved to make the stuffing."

"Wow" Stephanie chimes in, "I'll bet it was really great, huh?"

"Umm" I replied in the general direction of my mother, "Was this a talent you acquired in recent years?"

"Dave" she answers, "You loved it!"

"I did?" I replied with a question, "Ooook." I mean so much for the special and traditional part of this product. I do know that she eventually figured out Stove Top and maybe one year graduated to Pepperidge Farm stuffing. I mean all she had to do was add a little water and cover it and it worked out.

I'm thinking the stroke has now beamed a certain part of her brain and now she thinks she's Martha Stewart.

Finally her session was over for the day and Stephanie had to ask, "Was the stuffing THAT good?"

"Steph, it doesn't exist unless this is something maybe she figured out recently." I answered, "I don't think she has made Thanksgiving dinner in almost 20 years. I'm 45 and I don't think I've had Thanksgiving with her since my teens and there was no special stuffing!"

"Dave" she answered, "All she could talk about was this stuffing and how she HAD to make this happen!"

Steph then makes me tell the rest of the staff that the stuffing is a figment of her imagination. Everyone starts laughing and one says, "Dave, she can't shut up about this stuffing! How she wants to make Thanksgiving dinner like she does every year."

"Every year?" I protested, "To the best of my knowledge she has it at a friends house for the past 10 years or so and I don't know where before that. My mother hasn't made Thanksgiving since sometime in the 80's as far as I know."

The place is now roaring and now I can only imagine the wonderful Thanksgiving scene she has painted for these people like out of a Norman Rockwell pic.

"Now I see where you get you get your story talent." someone said.

"AT LEAST MY STORIES ARE CLOSE TO THE TRUTH!" I answered astonished, "HERS ARE COMPLETELY FULL OF SHIT!"

Now they're on the floor practically.

I leave and later in the day my brother calls me up, "What's the story about this stuffing at Thanksgiving?" Here we are in the middle of March and the most important subject on everyone's mind is Thanksgiving stuffing. We went round and round trying to figure out if we ever had anything other than Stove Top brand mix growing up.

Were trying to imagine if were the ones who are nuts here and we missed something all these years.

A few weeks into this we go to the meeting for her progress reports. What is odd about this meeting is that it reminded me of being a kid in high school and her getting called down to the school so we could get ratted out by the teachers. Only this time its like were the parents and she's the kid.

The present staff members are discussing her situation and then went thru her list of goals for her rehab stay.

"Eleanor would like to get well enough to be able to make her special stuffing at Thanksgiving." one staff member reads as Stephanie tries to choke back the laughter, while my mother gets that look on her face again like this was a missing link of her life.

My brother Mike looks at me and Chaz like "What the f**k is that about?" While we shrugged our shoulders, shook our heads and tried not to bust a gut.

Mike, never one to hold back a question or an opinion asked, "El..when did you ever make stuffing?"

Chaz's wife Jill finally broke the tension with laughter.

"I made it all the time." she stated.

"Were we there?" Mike asked

"Of course." she hammered nervously.

The meeting ended without any other discussion of any more goals..real or imaginary.

The next day in PT I tried to get her to refocus on things that she did used to make for food. Yet she kept coming back to this stuffing that to the best of our recollection didn't exist.

Finally Joy the Occupational Therapist who has developed a very special friendship with my mother and isn't afraid to be realistic with her came right out and told her, "El, I get the feeling you've never made real stuffing in your life."

After a short argument of some kind, the stuffing was never brought up again.

Later on I got the feeling that I understood what this was about...not so much about stuffing itself but more about regret. Its like that person who is upset they never learned how to play piano and its too late to start.

Mother has her quirks no question and she used to complain about how much work it was to put together family time and traditional things. But when you can no longer do that at all, when its no longer an option for you to help make that happen, its even worse.

Things had changed and they never were never going to go back to where they were before. When it came to family things over recent years, Mother had just one job now..show up. Now even that was going to be hard.

As the holiday season was now almost here it made me think of things I can do to help minimize regret. How messed up is it that turkey stuffing has turned into a symbolic metaphor for things in life that weren't accomplished and personal shortcomings?

I get the feeling when we pass the stuffing this year at Thanksgiving, we'll never look at it quite the same way ever again.

One day after Mother had a particularly difficult workout in PT, I went back into the gym where she sat there wearily.

Always one willing to start, I threw a quarter in the jukebox...

"So El.." I started, "How's that stuffing comin'?"

"Shut the f**k up Dave!" she snapped back as myself and the staff all cracked up.

Somethings have changed...but some things never change!