Grandmas: The Resin Of Family Love

Hey, I just wanted to say Happy Thanksgiving to all.
This morning, while sitting out on the porch with a hot cup of mint tea, I found myself reminiscing about how the decades have changed this day for so many American families. Thanksgiving used to look one way — full houses, crowded kitchens, cousins underfoot, women in aprons, and enough food to feed the county. But over the years, the meaning, the gatherings, and even the rhythm of the day have shifted. And as I sat there thinking, a whole flood of memories came back to me…

Back when I was growing up, Thanksgiving was a community inside a single house. As long as my grandparents were alive, their home was the center of gravity for the entire family. Folks would travel hours — from the city, from out of state — just to be there. Maw was the heart of it all. She wasn’t a woman of many words, but she could speak through her cooking. Her chicken and dumplings could quiet a room. Her sage dressing made people close their eyes with the first bite. It didn’t matter how tired she was — the table was always full.

And let me tell you, we didn’t eat fancy, but we ate well. Maw would roll dough on that big wooden table, and I’d stand on a chair beside her, cutting biscuit rounds with the backside of a drinking glass — because she said that was the best cutter in the world. There’d be cousins running in and out of the house, uncles laughing in the yard, men and kids eating first while the women waited their turn. That’s just how it was then.

People dressed up back then, too. Country folk or not, Easter hats and white gloves came out on holidays. And even with all the chaos, all the gossip whispered around corners, all the quiet little hurts families hide — the food still brought us together. It held us like glue.

But here’s the thing nobody tells you when you’re young:
When the elders pass, the whole family tree shifts. Sometimes branches turn away instead of toward one another.
Sometimes the glue goes with the hands that made the biscuits.

I’ve watched it in my own family over the years. After my grandparents were gone, things slowly changed. The meals got smaller. The cooking shifted houses. People grew apart. Aunts moved into senior homes. Cousins stopped visiting. And those big long tables with mismatched chairs? Those became memories stored in the quiet corners of our minds.

And maybe you’ve seen it too.

Do you ever notice how many families fall apart after the grandparents are no longer here to hold it together? How, without the matriarch or the patriarch, Thanksgiving slowly becomes just another Thursday? I look around sometimes — even in my own community — and see people walking in and out of Cracker Barrel on Thanksgiving day, barely speaking to one another, sitting at separate tables, paying separate bills. Folks who used to gather in a single living room now pass each other like strangers in a doorway.

It’s not that people don’t love each other.
It’s that modern life pulls us apart if we aren’t intentional about pulling back together.

And here’s the truth I’ve come to believe with all my heart:

A mother holds the glue of a family…
and a grandmother holds the resin.

The glue fixes things for the moment, but the resin keeps it strong for generations. That resin is what my Maw had. She didn’t talk much, but her presence kept everyone orbiting the same sun. When she left, the resin left with her — and the family shifted like sand.

But here’s the part that gives me hope:
Every generation has someone who rises up and realizes, “If I don’t hold this together, nobody will.”
That special family member who chooses unity over division.
Someone who chooses forgiveness over old wounds.
A good soul who picks up the mixing bowl, the apron, or the phone call — and opens the door again.

So on this Thanksgiving, I hope you get a moment to breathe…
to sit on your own porch…
to remember the ones who held your family together…
and maybe, just maybe, to feel that tug inside your heart that says:

“I might be the resin now.”

From my little Kentucky porch to wherever you are today,
Happy Thanksgiving — truly.

If you enjoy stories like this, you’ll love the other life lessons & memories I’m sharing on The Appalachian Sage. …………And if you’re ever in the mood to browse something pretty, you can stop by my Etsy shop, The Appalachian Sage Shop, where I pour the same love and kindness into each design.

— Hannah Cedars 🧡