Note–someone asked where they could find a copy of this column from a couple years back. I hope you folks don’t mind a reprint this week. Please have a joyous and safe Thanksgiving, and treasure every moment with your family and friends. Every second is precious, and worthy of giving thanks.
When my parents were still alive, Thanksgiving dinner was a study in paradox. Miss Lois always had a dress-up, sit-down dinner, with a handful of family. Then we flew up the road to Miss Rhonda’s family event, which is always roughly twice the size of the average church homecoming.
For some reason, Thanksgiving seems to be a time when vehicles break down in creative and often life-threatening ways. There was the year when the steering wheel on my sporty German coupe wrung off as we turned the corner to Mother and Papa’s street. Another year saw a flat tire, and a jack that broke (with the truck in the air). One of my beloved Suburbans blew a fuel line to bits the Monday before Turkey Day.
Miss Rhonda and I plan to have a small one this year, with just brother Mike. With her folks gone on to Heaven, and her brother’s family six hours away, we are counting our blessings and saying thanks in small ways. I have always been prone, when possible, to kiss my wife goodbye and head for the woods.
Shopping, secularism and sociopolitical correctness aside, Thanksgiving was originally a day of worship. As much as I love church fellowship, I am never closer to the Maker than when I’m in a cathedral of pine trees, or the chapel of a hardwood lowland swamp.
On one particularly memorable Thanksgiving, the bridge at Henry Farms was my Thanksgiving table, my feast a bag of leftovers, washed down with a bottle of tea. There are famous restaurateurs who would despair at providing such a meal.
I was alone in what passes for quiet in the woods. There was no television, no trauma or drama that inevitably comes to life when people gather. One cannot help but be reflective in a place and time like that.
I thought of how, even in the lean times and the tough moments, I’m really blessed – I have a loving wife, a job I love, more true friends than a man deserves, a home, plenty to eat, and no problems that are insurmountable. Covering all of that, I have the abiding love of Christ, which brings with it a gratitude that humbles even the proudest heart.
I thought of those who through no choice of their own, were thousands of miles from their families, as well as the ones making sure everyone else could enjoy a safe holiday. I thought of those men and women who were barely able to give their families a home, never mind any of the special things like a big holiday meal. I thought of those who have no idea what the next day brings, and those whose hope has been restored.
I spent the rest of that glorious afternoon amongst my friends the trees. My favorite dove field was highlighted by a handful of silver-gray rockets flashing across the long-forgotten corn stalks, but they were too far out of range, or I was too lackadaisical, to pull the trigger.
A front coming in from the west gave us a kaleidoscope sunset, as well as a precipitous drop in temperature. I watched God’s paintbrushes at work until His canvas was behind the treeline.
I prefer celebrating Thanksgiving in my own way, smelling the perfume of the pines whilst remembering Mother’s smile when she could finally sit down with the family. I had scanned the ground for tracks as my father’s old joke about tossing away the toasting glass ran through my mind again, more than a decade after the last time Mother worried Papa would lose his grip on the tiny antique. I got to watch a pair of young hawks dispute some issue they found important enough to bring a breathtaking play to a stage in the bright blue sky.
Then I got to return to my dogs, overjoyed at my homecoming. Later when Miss Rhonda’s headlights turned up the driveway, I was the one who was overjoyed.
The next day, someone asked if I’d had a good Thanksgiving. Remembering the memories of holidays past, and the sun on my face as I dined on leftovers on a broken-down wooden bridge, I had to say yes indeed, I did, as I gave thanks among the pines.
