My first memories of Thanksgiving are like a Norman Rockwell painting come alive again in my mind.
For many years, Thanksgiving was a time when all my aunts, uncles, and cousins gathered together around a long table in Aunt Barb’s finished basement to feast on the traditional meal of turkey with every side dish you could dream of.
While the aunts worked at filling platters and bowls with steaming vegetables, mashed potatoes, gravy, relishes, salads, yams and stuffing, the uncles gathered in the living room upstairs telling their stories around the blazing fireplace.
We kids played tag and plunked on the upright piano in the big basement’s corner as we waited, and sometimes I’d sneak upstairs for a piece of chocolate from the fancy box of assorted variations that sat on the coffee table there. The men were sipping glasses of concord grape wine, and once my dad let me have a small sip of his to taste.
I remember Cousin David, a tiny toddler, sitting at the table in his high chair gumming the turkey’s huge drumstick in glee. One cousin found the wishbone, and we all stopped eating to watch as she closed her eyes and made a wish, and then, with another cousin, pulled it apart, the larger half of it ending up in her hands, signaling that her wish would come true. Everybody laughed and clapped. Then they resumed passing endless bowls of food, the continuous murmur of their talk and laughter filling the room.
The memory glows golden in my mind.
But I have darker Thanksgiving memories, too.
One year, I had just moved to a new state with my 6-year-old son and knew no one. I had exhausted my meager savings and my cupboards were all but bare. I would have no more money until the following week when the first paycheck from my new job would arrive.
I sold a cherished piece of jewelry for $10 to buy a Thanksgiving meal of two chicken drumsticks, small cans of sweet potatoes and green beans, and a single piece of pumpkin pie to share with my son. I got a tub of whipped topping, too, for the pie, just to make the meal’s end special.
Then there was the time when my neighbor, Mildred, after spending hours preparing the traditional feast for her husband and two teenage sons, watched them hurriedly shovel down the food without a word, eager to return to the football game on TV. As they rushed back to the living room, not one of them thanked her for the lovely meal.
So she cleared the remaining food from the table and stowed it away. Then she gathered up the four corners of her special table cloth along with her best tableware and china and dumped the whole bundle in the garbage can, determined never to cook Thanksgiving dinner ever again.
Remembering those stories always triggers a wave of compassion in my heart for those who find themselves excluded from the holiday’s celebrations. In addition to my prayers of gratitude I always ask for comfort and encouragement for them . . .
For the cold and lonely ones, those without family contact or a genuine friend, isolated from the warmth of community, some without a home,
and for the goodhearted ones who seek to provide them with meals and shelter, if only for this one day, out of gratitude for their own blessings;
For those who know no God to thank;
For those whose hearts feel only bitterness and despair;
For those serving the nation in foreign lands;
For those who suffer from injury or ill health;
For those who who are dying,
For the imprisoned;
For those in despair;
For those who forego family celebrations to serve at their jobs.
I ask for special blessings, too, for all the families who still gather on this day to feast and give thanks, and for all whose hearts truly feel grateful, whatever their circumstances, for the manifold blessings in their lives.
And today, I give thanks for you, reading these words, from the bottom of my heart.
May you be filled with gladness, and love, and thanksgiving, now, and in all the days ahead.
Warmly,
Susan
Image by Print On Demand from Pixabay