This year marked the first Thanksgiving I'd ever experienced without Dad, who died in June.

They say time heals all wounds, but that doesn't mean we forget the ones with whom we spent so much of our lives. I'll probably always think of him when the family gathers. I can almost see him sitting at the table quietly, holding his grandchildren or watching everyone as they buzz around him gathering their food.

My parents always seemed to enjoy having the family together, but it was really Dad who had the greatest measure of joy in the occasion. Mom, who's more concerned about keeping the house clean in general than anything else, doesn't really like the crowds. She'd rather have a few people at a time with no food and no mess. It sounds bad, but it's not meant that way.

She does enjoy spending time with her family, she'd just rather do it at someone else's house. Probably even more so since she recently took a fall from her front porch, missing a step or two heading out to the car. She had been planning to visit with a family member for the evening and turned off the porch light on her way out.

She missed the step (or steps) in the dark and fell into the side of the waiting car, breaking her arm and sustaining several other injuries. The worst part was the loss of use of her right arm, which has to be in a sling for some six to 10 weeks. Just knowing that is enough to drive her crazy. "I hate not being able to do anything," she told me last week for the third time after eating breakfast at my house.

She has been staying with relatives since her accident, which has left her less able to do things. She spends a few days here and there, since most of us probably drive her crazy if she stays much longer. Whenever she can, she stays home and gets help in doing her normal chores. No one really appreciates how much he or she needs two arms until only one is available. Think about it: slicing a tomato, making a sandwich, typing and using the mouse on a keyboard, getting up from a chair or bed, folding clothes and just about anything else is easier with two arms. There are many people with one or even no arms who have great skill at doing tasks, adapting and training themselves to work with what they have to do work that most people simply take for granted.

But those of us who have been spoiled for so many years with two good arms have a difficult time adapting to using only one.

The injury has also left her unable to write and also makes it hard to do something as simple as using a fork.

I can recall with my grandmother, my mother's mother, had her stroke and ended up in a wheel chair with only one good arm. She was miserable for the remainder of her life, bitter that she was unable to do even the simple tasks she did for so much of her life. Now my mother has new insight into her predicament. She, too, seems unhappy with her newfound disability.

(She also complained recently that I never write about her, but this just proves that she couldn't be right. Hopefully, I won't say too much she doesn't like, since she doesn't need two arms to read). Anyway, as a homemaker who has spent most of her life focused on keeping her house spotless—I mean white-gloves over the door frame clean, she is having a hard time adjusting to letting others do the work. Independent people seem to have the most trouble adjusting to problems like that, and she is very independent.

The rest of her job was generally caring for my father, who lived the greatest part of his life as a totally disabled veteran of the Korean War. She prepared his meals, washed his clothing and, later, took care of his medical needs as his health deteriorated over the last few years of his life.

With his death, she has been left with more time and now, with her arm, even less that she can do. So, with a surplus of time and a shortage of things to do, she is facing a crisis in life.

This year the Thanksgiving meal was at my sister's house, which provided her with a respite from her usual worries of cleaning up after the crowd.

Even when the rest of the family pitches in a cleans up after the meal, she isn't satisfied until she does it all a second time. For instance, she washes the dishes in the sink and then puts them in the dishwasher. "But Mom, you're doing the work twice," I said.

"I don't want all that dirty stuff in my dishwasher," she replies. I always thought that was the point of having a dishwasher—putting dirty stuff inside so that it could come out clean.

Washing the tile-topped kitchen table? She washes it first with soap and water and then with window cleaner to make sure there are no spots or streaks.

She also typically scrubs the tile in the kitchen and bathroom with a brush and then cleans it with a rag.

"A mop just doesn't get the floor clean," she says. She uses a mop in between cleaning the floor, which she usually does once a week (even though no one wears shoes in the house).

For years I thought my family was Japanese because of that very thing. She still doesn't like it when people wear shoes inside. I have a friend who is similar, whom I have seen picking up items like tiny strings off the carpet and I once asked him, "Do you ever wonder if you are picking up things that no one else can see?" He just picked up another string and move along.

I have never been one to concern myself with a tiny something on the floor or a speck or two of dust here and there. There comes a point, at least in my mind, when the line between clean and ridiculous is crossed. The location of the line is subject to speculation. For me, I try to keep the house sanitary, taking care of garbage, dirty dishes and laundry, but a few strings in the floor is not something I would consider a biohazard.

Even so, we always try to clean up the house before Momma comes over. In fact, that's probably as clean as the house gets most of the time (not that it's ever nasty, it just isn't to the white glove standard). Even so, I'll likely never meet her standards for cleanliness and we'll never agree on wearing shoes in the house, but we still love each other very much. As I see it, the things were made to serve me, I wasn't made to serve things.

On the other hand, I suppose it is the work of cleaning and keeping a tidy home that makes her feel important. We all like to feel important, I just find my sense of worth in different ways.

Isn't it odd how such different people can come from the same family? While I didn't get the 'clean gene,' I do have one sister who mops her floor several times a day and has a problem with trying to keep things from ever being out of position in her house. Sometimes I move things around when she leaves the room and am amazed at the speed with which she notices and returns to straighten them. You could move a what-not or a picture at my house and no one might not notice for weeks.

My other sister's house looks like a museum with lots of stuff that doesn't look like anyone touches it very often. It is also very neat and tidy.

Most of my personal possessions are either in use or are things that look like I could use in the future. If they don't meet either criteria, if they aren't family heirlooms, they're usually not around very long.

Maybe that's what families are for, perhaps they're God's way of teaching us to learn to love people with whom we have little or nothing in common. If you don't think so, just ask my sisters.

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