Gather

I’ve written before about how much I love Thanksgiving….and how many memories I have. I’ll bet you do too.

• my earliest memories were centered around a feast…. The men deer hunting..finishing lunch with coffee and the women around the piano.. Ruth Caldwell singing “There’s no place like home for the Holidays”

• I distinctly remember coming home from William Woods… exhausted.. and waking up in the cold upstairs bedroom snuggled under the cover, smelling coffee and the beginning of lunch…and hearing Aunt Lucille’s laughter. Mother was no doubt cooking 10 different dishes and Aunt Lucille was making 1 tiny gourmet artichoke dish. But we didn’t care because she was Aunt Lucille.

•Of course we all remember the time I left Fulton after student teaching in Mexico Mo. on Wednesday before Thanksgiving, hitting snow in Rolla. Stopping at a pay phone to ask Daddy what to do… “keep on driving you’re heading south” was his response. A few miles later and the mustang and I were in the ditch. Waiting for my brothers in law to rescue me at the El Rancho truck stop was quite the experience.

We made it home by 2:00 but not until the car buried up in the snow in front of the Methodist church and Jack Haney abandoned ship and hopped in the truck.

• I remember the year Mother died and I tried so hard to recreate everything. The turkey was ok … but it wasn’t right to be in her kitchen without her. Let’s just say that at 25 I was ill equipped, to say the least. JoKay took the reins the following year… and all was well.

•Then we lost Mike. Our hearts were broken.. but Paul and Bjorn carried on and we loved them for it.

•Of course the tragedy of losing JoKay so unexpectedly on Thanksgiving was more than I could handle. She had the turkey in the fridge ready to go…. I ran home to Jonesboro and left Becky to deal… went a little crazy and made Jack and the boys deliver St. Bernard’s meals on Thanksgiving because I just couldn’t celebrate.

•The torch was passed to Becky after we lost JoKay and she and Dawn handled it beautifully. We added nephews and my DIL’s and once again we circled up and gave thanks. Even when Becky was ill she was determined we stay together. God love her. She knew she was dying but insisted we hold hands and say what we were thankful for before someone said grace.

And now… it’s different. Different locations, extended families…. But we’ll still give thanks. As they say…we were “raised right”. We appreciate all we’ve been given, our love for each other and our faith. God is good….life is good. It may be different but that’s ok. The love’s the Same….. and there are new little people to entertain. And wrangle. I will not let my melancholy-ness slide into depression. I have too much to be thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving friends.

Be kind to each other.