Thanksgiving
I walked into a department store on November 1 to buy myself a bra. There wasn’t any Christmas music playing yet, but there was a large display of holiday decor front and center as I walked in. It made me realize that Christmas will happen this year even though I would prefer that it not. I could feel my chest tighten and briefly wondered if I was going to hyperventilate. I headed straight for the lingerie department, made my selection, practically threw cash at the woman at the register and scurried out the door. I hadn’t been thinking about the holidays much, but once I was back in the security of the car, I thought “Ready or not, here it comes.”
The holiday season. Ours traditionally started with the Lehigh Lafayette football game, which is always the Saturday before Thanksgiving. These two colleges are both based in the Lehigh Valley, and with their strong engineering programs, the firms where we both worked always had a mix of alumni. We hadn’t attended the game in decades, but occasionally dropped in on a tailgate party and usually watched the game on TV. Sometimes we hosted out-of-town friends too. Good-natured joking between those of us who attended Lehigh and those who went to Lafayette was the norm and we could expect some pre-game pranks. One year we planted a big Beat Lafayette sign in a friend’s yard, and the next year, the same sign reappeared there, repainted with the opposite message. Another year we filled our boss’s office with brown and white (Lehigh’s colors) balloons. It was all in fun, and marked the start of homecoming, a return to the nest that many of us would experience in the coming weeks as the year drew to a close. Ken also made bets with a few colleagues from the dark side over which team would win. This year I didn’t even turn on the television, and couldn’t bring myself to reach out to some friends whom I believe are due a case of beer from last year.
And then Thanksgiving, then Advent, then Christmas, then New Year’s and our holiday season wouldn’t end until Ken’s birthday in early January. About seven weeks. Seven weeks of family and friends, seven weeks of rich food and drink, seven weeks of both reminiscing and memory-making. Seven weeks of early darkness brightened by twinkling lights and loving relationships. This year, it will be seven weeks of trying to avoid getting sucked into the black hole of Ken’s absence.
Even before I opted to lay low for Lehigh Lafayette, I needed to settle on a plan for Thanksgiving. There are other family members to consider and of course there is still much in my life for which I am thankful. I decide that I am going to host our children and my family here for the meal, and then receive an invitation from my mother-in-law: she wants to host all of Ken’s family at her house. Now I am torn…she is mourning the loss of her son, and my children would enjoy spending time with their grandmother and cousins, and I feel compelled to acquiesce to their needs. But after a week of trying to figure out how to make a trip to Ken’s family homestead easier on me, I finally decide that I need to be in my own home. I may not have very many more holidays in this place, and more importantly, here I can hide if I need to. And there is a good chance I will need to.
Despite my grief over facing another holiday without Ken, there is an excitement to knowing my children and extended family will all be together. There is also a relief into pouring myself into prepping the house and food for the occasion, the busyness a helpful diversion from the emptiness I feel.
On Wednesday, when I am buzzing with the energy of anticipation, I get a text that I had a probable exposure to COVID on Monday. Oh geez. My aged parents, my children, there are ten other people who will start to gather at my house in just a few hours. Neither Ken nor I ever had COVID, and now, for the first Thanksgiving without him, I might have finally contracted it? I quickly contact all of the attendees. If I develop symptoms, maybe I can still cook the turkey and the rest of the fresh food that is not going to keep to allow for a postponement, and someone can pick it all up and they can meet at my parents’ house instead. And then I’ll be alone for Thanksgiving? Uh, no. After an hour of exchanges, we agree that the day should go on as planned. If I remain symptom free, I’ll wear a mask around others, and if I don’t, I’ll isolate upstairs. At least the house won’t be empty.
As it turns out, I test negative and do not develop symptoms. I wear the mask, which disturbs my granddog, but at least I can be around my people. Like at Easter, I set a place at the table for Ken, but this time I’m not sure I like that. On one hand, it feels right to maintain a space for him, on the other hand, those empty plates and glasses look forlorn on a table that is otherwise overflowing with food and drink. It is important to include him but I need to figure out a different way to do that. The day is bright and sunny so we spend a few hours outside between dinner and dessert and have the first bonfire of the year. Fire was one of Ken’s responsibilities, and it is both sad and comforting to watch one of my sons and a nephew take over for him. This day and the next, when we visit my mother-in-law, pass with more laughter than tears. And then after four days of holding myself more or less together, I am alone and the house is quiet again and I can cry. I don’t think I have ever been so glad to see a holiday end.
For many years of our marriage, we went to one of our childhood homes for most holiday meals, but once our children grew up, we started hosting at home more often. In 2018, the weekend after Thanksgiving when everyone had gone home, the two of us passed on another meal of leftovers and went out for a nice quiet dinner together. A chance to eat something other than turkey, and an opportunity to focus on each other, review the gathering and plan for the weeks leading to Christmas. It was so relaxing we decided that this would be a new tradition: a night of dining out to recover from one holiday as we started to prepare for the next one. But two months later there was the cancer diagnosis, and Ken’s subsequently compromised immune system coupled with COVID meant we would never sit together in a restaurant over Thanksgiving weekend again.
Fortunately for me, most of our traditions were not this short-lived, since traditions are what help to keep us grounded in our history. They promote a consistency that reminds us who we are in an ever-changing world. And even though in our modern society we switch jobs, and move to new places, and deal with changing technology, the biggest changes we face are still the birth or death of someone we love. There are so many things that seemed the same about this holiday, so many of the same foods, the same stories, the same faces. And yet without Ken, it also seemed so different.
So a goal for the next five weeks, aside from avoiding collapsing in a heap on the floor, is to decide which traditions, old and new, will help my kids and I maintain our connection to Ken, and which I can let go of for a year or two, or forever. Because nothing else seems as important as keeping him with us as we remember who we are. I’d be interested in hearing ways that you have managed to include your loved one with you at the holidays, either in the comments or via email. Thanks and peace be with you in the coming weeks.