Mybana

The author and her family at Thanksgiving dinner in Rochester, in 2008. Credit: Karen Hatch

By Amy L. Hatch

We spent yesterday in doctors’ offices.

Emmie is sick; she has either strep throat or a mild case of H1N1, and either way our plans for the Thanksgiving holiday are canceled. Every year we drive back East to be with our families, but this year it looks like I’m going to be making my very! first! turkey! ever! And stuffing to go with it. Not to mention two pies; cherry and, of course, pumpkin.

Every year at this time we gird ourselves for a marathon of travel. Thanksgiving and Christmas are hectic times for us, but we so rarely get to see our families of origin. So we pack up the mini-van and head out on the open road. I always say that we’re “going home” for the holidays.

This year, though, our holiday will be here. At home in Mybana.

When Emmie was younger, she thought we were saying “Our Bana” or “Your Bana” when we referred to our adopted home here in the flatlands. So when she spoke of Chambana, she used the possessive.

“Mom,” she’d say to me during one of our marathon trips. “I want to go home, home to My Bana.”

It always stung a little when she said this. Home was Rochester, N.Y., where she was born. Where her maternal grandmother and aunt still live. Where her grandfather, my father, was buried on a sunny day in August five years ago.

But Mybana? A temporary shelter, at best. To my daughter, though, this is home. This is where her bedroom is, where her toys are, where her school and her friends are. Chambana — Mybana — is the only home she remembers or knows.

Years have passed since malapropisms have been part of Emmie’s vernacular. She is an articulate 4-year-old, often mistaken for a child much older due to her stature, vocabulary and diction. But she can’t seem to shake Mybana.

I’m going to miss spending time 700 miles to the east this week, playing with my niece and nephews, or shopping at my favorite mall and the mecca of all grocery stores, Wegmans. But I can’t help but be thankful for this community that welcomed me despite my misgivings.

Happy Thanksgiving, Chambana.

Amy L. Hatch is a co-founder of chambanamoms.com, and has an irrational fear of raw poultry. She writes “From Here to There,” a column about being a Northeastern girl on the prairie, on Tuesdays. You can reach her at amy@chambanamoms.com.

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