Thanks for Coming, Thaddeus!

Thaddeus is sitting patiently in the refrigerator in the garage waiting for eager hands to deliver him to the oven this afternoon.  He came to us from Amish country.  I guess that makes him Amish, but it doesn't really matter.  After dinner tonight he will be remembered as a tasty symbol of all we have to be thankful for. 

Many of my friends berate me for anthropomorphizing our holiday main courses...I on the other hand like the personalization.  It makes the eating of them somehow closer to the heart.  I always like to name the hogs that my brother-in-law Jeremy or my nephew Richard cooked for family gatherings.  So much effort and care goes into the proper preparation.  When you put morsels of them in your mouth, it helps to think of it as a personal gift from a sentient idealized soul.  We had been blessed with Ted last Thanksgiving.  At family reunions we have been fed with the presence of Horace (the hog) and Beulah (the beast).  My kids used to think it was corny, but they got a chuckle out of it.  It also gives us a mirthful moment when we say the blessing before we eat to especially thank "whomever" for gracing us with his/her presence (albeit posthumously).


Anyway, the family has gathered and it is still quiet in the house while they sleep in their beds that lie in wait for them so infrequently now that they are grown.  My daughters are home, the older one with her fiance and dog; my younger one just brought her dog.  Our empty nest has been descended upon by the boundless energy of young people and their frantic animals, trying to figure out the pecking order between them for the next couple of days.  Before the fray becomes overwhelming, I am just taking a few minutes to savor the anticipation of the experience of today with my family and some close friends.

For me, Thanksgiving is all about family and enjoying the presence of people that I love....and taking a moment to give thanks for all that I have that I don't think about except on days like this.   When we sit around the table tonight with our smiling faces beaming at each other, and our friends sharing our home and our love for each other I am always amazed at my good fortune.

My children are both healthy.  They are basically happy individuals, each with their own 'mishugaas' to be sure, but they are making their way in the world.  They have found love and independence.  What else could make us more grateful as parents than that.  I think about all the people I know who are going through divorce, separation, medical crises, emotional crises, and I look at the people gathered around me and am thankful that these faces have not been ground down by those experiences. To be sure we have had our share of difficult times, but at this moment they are memories and not present in our lives.

I look at my wife of 30 years and think about all we have shared --in good health and love.  We have raised these children.  We have a commonality of vision for their happiness and our own.  We have shared love and family through all these years.  We have had 30 Thanksgivings together and each one has been a good time--a time to take stock and really be thankful.  We are blessed.

So I think about Thaddeus and how he will add to our pleasure today, and about all those who will gather at bountiful tables tonight.  We are all angry about our politics and all the things that are wrong with our society and our lives, but this night, we need to take a deep breath and be thankful for all that we do have that is so rare in this world.  We have relative peace in a place that is not a locus of war and death like so many other places on this planet.  We don't know what tomorrow will bring, but we can live at this moment and savor the sweet time of family and smiles that this day and souls like Thaddeus bring us once a year.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!