This year after the ravages of the covid 19 pandemic, there will be many families with an empty chair at the table that bears the turkey and all that goes with it. That is true in our family where we will be celebrating the day with, for an only child, a large group of family and extended family. This was done to ease us over a holiday without a loved one who reveled in any gathering of relatives, even if it meant turkey which she did not enjoy.
Our ancestors, no matter what may be true or not true about the first thanksgiving, had more to give thanks for than just the food. They were facing life in an unfamiliar land for which they were mostly unprepared. Their thanks had to extend beyond the physical provisions in front of them, to the fact that they had survived in a hostile environment. It had been hard, close friends and family had died, but they stopped to give thanks for all that had been given them.
I plan to do the same this year. We were given a very special person for 21 years and I am grateful to have known her. We can concentrate on all her qualities and enjoy telling stories about her adventurous and irrepressible views on life. She was intelligent, athletic, opinionated, involved, and a very caring sister. But we are not going to immortalize her. She also kept the messiest room ever, and nothing could convince her that it needed to change. At a moment’s notice she could reach into the chaos and produce what she was looking for. Out of that disorder she produced amazing grades and beautifully written papers. Her views of the world were hers and she could not be moved no matter what carefully crafted arguments were given her. She loved the independence of the car but was a less than wonderful driver to which various bumps and scrapes testified. She loved her semester abroad in Spain so much that she refused to change her phone map back from Spanish to English, leaving her poor grandmother to negotiate New York traffic with a foreign language babbling in her ear. She was, she said, preparing for a life of travel. I just wanted to get to her dorm.
We will miss and remember a very special, complicated, and unique individual ---- but then doesn’t that description fit everyone that we meet and know ? That is an important thought to remember in all of our interactions with others. This we can give great thanks for in all the years to come.