A turkey.

We’ve always had a complicated relationship with Thanksgiving. For the first decade of our marriage, we spent each holiday traveling to out-of-state family gatherings, with all that entails. For the next thirteen years, we skipped out on the traditional trappings in order to spend time in the Sonoran desert, just the two of us, walking among the cacti while most people were taking a tryptophan nap.

When Chelli’s declining health made that trip impossible, now 6 or 7 years ago, we struggled to figure out an alternative. For the most part, we just didn’t. Chelli’s parents were out-of-state with their own health issues, my parents had officially relocated to South Carolina, and my siblings had growing families of their own to focus on. So the “holiday” just became a long weekend. The arrival of COVID complicated it even more, then losing Chelli’s parents only days before Thanksgiving in 2021 turned everything inside out anew.

The last two Thanksgivings have been long weekends of deep sadness, to be honest, where we’ve simply surrendered to the malaise. I was determined to do something else this year, something besides a four-day weekend of sulking & sadness.

And so, I did a thing. A Thanksgiving turkey thing. A stuffing & green beans & cranberry compote & salad & baked brie thing. Yes, I had a huge assist on the prep from the fine people at Cameron Mitchell’s, but today, this guy who can barely toast a Pop-Tart without incident, had a house filled with the smell of tradition. We talked about the holidays we’ve had together, the highs & the lows, the people we’ve lost and miss desperately, all while enjoying a Thanksgiving bird for the first time in a couple decades.

Grief is a companion in our lives these days, whether it’s due to the handful of significant losses we’ve experienced in the last few years or the barrage of little losses we’ve experienced since Chelli’s body revolted 8 years ago in a medical crisis that, ironically, took place over a Thanksgiving weekend.

I’m glad we decided to do something different, something new, this year. It helped to make the day land a bit more gently.

For that, I am thankful.