It was Thanksgiving of 1974. I was on break from my first term at Berry College in Rome, Georgia. A few weeks after I’d graduated from Columbus High School, Mama had packed up the household belongings, loaded my little sister into the car and took off for Oregon. Brother John was already living there and had flown home to help Mama with the move.

The year had been a difficult one. In January I’d entered the maternity ward of Columbus Medical Center and underwent an abortion. Something about getting pregnant during my senior year of high school crystalized life for me. I had no desire to marry the pot-head I’d been dating, a brother of a friend. I knew if I did, my life would continue to be unstable. There would be a trailer in my future filled with cigarettes and beer cans, and a divorce down the road.

Nope. I wanted to go to college, get a degree make something better of my life. So i dumped the guy, had the abortion, sent in my application for college despite CHS’s counselor telling me it was unlikely I could get into college. She just didn’t think I was college material. I didn’t come from the right family and my SAT scores were appallingly abysmal.

Despite her dire warnings, I got into Berry. Meanwhile, a dear friend’s parents invited me to come live with them until I left for college. I moved into the McCombs’ family home on Lynda Lane. It wasn’t a big home but it seemed like a mansion to me. They had a living room that was rarely used as they spent most their evenings in the den decorated in proud University of Georgia red-and-black.

It was Rufe and Norfleet who drove me to Berry and helped me set up my half of the dorm room. Their daughter Beth and I were the best of friends. An only child born late to her mother, Beth welcomed me as a sister into her family. She was younger than me and we didn’t attend the same schools, but Beth and I had been friends for years.

So when Thanksgiving break rolled around, Daddy McCombs and Rufe invited me to join them in Dawson, Georgia. It was 49 years ago that I took my first bite of the carrot cake that would become our family’s recipe for every celebratory event to follow: Birthdays, Christmases, visiting VIPs, and, of course, Thanksgiving.

I still remember the first time I saw the cake. Daddy McCombs’ sister, Aunt Grace, had the cake sitting high above all the other common food offerings, like a Queen on her throne. I’d never seen a cake so regal looking.

My people didn’t eat carrot cake. They ate Little Debbie cakes that came packed by the dozen in cellophane wrappers. They were Granny’s favorites. Every now and again Granny would make a caramel cake that was Uncle Hugh’s favorite, and Daddy’s too, Mama told me later. I don’t remember Mama baking cakes. She’d make cobbler or banana pudding. She was a terrific cook, but baking wasn’t her thing. I still can’t make cornbread dressing as good as she did. I miss her most at Thanksgiving.

So when Aunt Grace sliced and served that carrot cake, I wasn’t at all sure I wanted any. I accepted the plate to be polite mostly. I couldn’t imagine anything with carrots in it tasting like a desert.

But from the first bite, that carrot cake was one of the best things I’d ever eaten. Moist. Chock full of walnuts. Not a single raisin or pineapple chunk as is the notion of some who don’t know any better.

In my garage is the rocking chair Aunt Grace was sitting in that Thanksgiving Day back in 1974. The seat needs to be rewoven, again. I’ve sat in it so much I’ve worn it out. That was the chair I was sitting in when I prayed all those years ago and asked God to make my world bigger not smaller as I aged.

I could never have imagined how big that world would become. I’m so thankful for each of you and if you were here, I’d offer you a slice of Aunt Grace’s carrot cake. But to get the recipe yourself, you have to come sit on the porch with me and swap stories.

Happy Thanksgiving y’all.