Missing Thanksgivings Past

I’ve always loved Thanksgiving. For me, it’s always been a more relaxed, more honest holiday. Things always went wrong in the execution of the day, but it was ok because the whole point of the day was to enjoy time with my family and eat good food and nothing ever happened bad enough to prevent us from enjoying all the time or all the food. We were usually late, sometimes some of the food wasn’t perfect, but Thanksgiving just shrugged its shoulders at the parts that weren’t ideal, kept on going and always ended up being a good day despite the bits of bad mixed in. The good was more than enough to redeem the day. 

When I was a child, Thanksgiving was Grandma’s day. My parents, my 3 sisters and I would pile into our van and drive 45 minutes to Grandma’s house and enjoy good food and fellowship with my Grandma, the Bradleys if we got there early enough and the Thorntons if they were stateside. 

There was a table in the formal dining room and a table in the kitchen and one would be the adult table and the other would be the kids table and sometimes Uncle David would sit with us kids just because he wanted to <3. We would all eat and talk and eat some more. We didn’t often see our aunts and uncles and cousins so it was a special time for us to catch up. I miss it. 

I usually ate so much that the day ended with a vow to never eat again and a long walk to make room for a turkey sandwich later. I miss those days and I miss my Grandma. 

When my grandma got sick and could no longer eat, we stopped having Thanksgiving there and we started having Thanksgiving with my sister and her kids. Usually, she would host. 

Since we got married in 2013, we have done Thanksgiving with my family and then with Eddie’s family later that day and then with Eddie’s Granny on Saturday. It was hectic and crazy at times, but I miss it. 

After my grandma died in 2014, my parents hosted for a few years. Last year, Joanna hosted. Mom and dad brought the turkey. They were late. By the time they arrived, we had already eaten and were just hanging out, enjoying the time together. Parts of it was frustrating and crazy, but it was good anyways and I miss that day and my beautiful sister. 

Today, I’m missing Thanksgivings past, not because they were perfect but because they weren’t missing anyone. I miss the certainty. We knew where we were going and what we were doing and who was bringing what. I miss the knowing what to expect. This year is like when Grandma got sick, everyone deciding will we still get together or will we fall apart. 

There was a part of me that didn’t want to have Thanksgiving at all this year because there’s no substitute for the people who can no longer be in it, but I also felt that if I didn’t do Thanksgiving with my family this year that it would be harder to start it up again and maybe we just wouldn’t do thanksgiving as a family anymore and that wasn’t an option I wanted to consider. Well, it was an option I very much wanted to consider because it sounded a lot easier and less painful, but it wasn’t an option I wanted to do. 

I hate the uncertainty and the insecurity and the fact that I was tempted to not do anything. I hate the part of me that didn’t want to do Thanksgiving with my family at all, but I understand it. It wouldn’t be the same without Joanna. It still hadn’t recovered from losing Grandma. It never got to meet Maggie. What once was such a family filled time is missing too much of the family. I was tempted to skip it, but decided not to give into temptation. I wanted to see my family even if it would hurt and would mean missing the ones who aren’t here and being sad. 

So I stepped into some very big shoes, and decided to host Thanksgiving at my house. I invited my parents and my sisters and my brother in law and nieces and nephews and my BIL’s mom. I started cooking and cleaning the day before and the day of, I found out that my parents and my brother in law and my nieces and nephew and my BIL’s mom would not be coming. 

I was immediately reminded of the story Jesus told:

“Then He said to him, “A certain man gave a great supper and invited many, and sent his servant at supper time to say to those who were invited, ‘Come, for all things are now ready.’ But they all with one accord began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of ground, and I must go and see it. I ask you to have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to test them. I ask you to have me excused.’ Still another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ So that servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind.’ And the servant said, ‘Master, it is done as you commanded, and still there is room.’ Then the master said to the servant, ‘Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. For I say to you that none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper.’ ” ‭‭Luke‬ ‭14:16-24‬ ‭‬‬

And I had the compulsion to drive around and find someone to eat with us. I had the compulsion, but not the time. I also knew that my husband would probably not approve of that idea. So instead, I invited some friends and a neighbor and kept preparing dinner. 

We ended up having almost as many people as we had invited originally, friends who are like the family I got to choose to me. The food was good, but the dressing took longer to bake than I expected so dinner was a little late, most of my family didn’t show, one of our friends hit a deer en route and her daughter didn’t feel well so they didn’t get to stay long, but at the end of the night our bellies and our dishwasher were full and so were our hearts. 

I still missed my Grandma, my sister and my daughter. The day was full of craziness and stress and last minute issues. But Thanksgiving was still full of good food and good company and there was more than enough good to redeem the day. It was not the perfect day by far, but it’s still my favorite holiday. 

This Thanksgiving, I’m thankful that Thanksgiving is as resilient as ever. It has grown up a bit with me and its issues are bigger, but it’s still full of enough good to outweigh the bad, regardless of who it is missing. 

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving with the people who were able to be with you. We all have so much to be thankful for and while thankfulness can coexist with grief, the one you focus on determines whether your day is happy or sad. May your bellies and hearts be full and may your day have more than enough good to redeem the bad.