TheBanyanTree: There is No Guarantee

[Margaret R. Kramer]

Two young deer stopped by our backyard yesterday afternoon.  The
neighborhood was quiet because everyone was either in the house or at
someone else’s house celebrating Thanksgiving.  They nosed the empty
birdfeeders and then took long drinks from our birdbath.  The birdbath sits
on the ground and operates year round courtesy of an electric heater which
sits in the water.  They looked around and didn’t see much, I guess, and
then quietly walked between our house and the neighbor’s house and
disappeared from my view.

It was a cold, rotten day.  The wind was howling and the wind chill was near
zero degrees.  It was a blessing to have a warm house and a warm oven.  I
dutifully went to workout in the morning.  The place was packed.  While I
was working out, I couldn’t help but wonder how many people were going to
cook dinner, how many people were going over to someone else’s house, or how
many people would just spend Thanksgiving by themselves.  Even though we all
grew up with the Norman Rockwell version of Thanksgiving with extended
families gathering happily together at Grandma’s house, sometimes I think
that is not necessarily the norm.

Earlier this week, a co-exerciser described to me her Thanksgiving, which is
the typical Norman Rockwell version, and she seemed surprised my
Thanksgiving wasn’t going to be like hers.  Well, my grandparents are all
gone.  My parents are gone.  My sister lives in Ohio and my brother lives in
a far northern suburb.  Ray and I are a blended family, so most of his
family lives in Milwaukee and we don’t get together with them.

My family has shifted and changed so much over the years, that I don’t think
we ever really had a typical Thanksgiving.  My father was an only child and
was the adored nephew of aunts and uncles who didn’t have their own
children.  But those aunts and uncles moved to Florida and were rarely seen
by us.  My mother’s parents were divorced and our Thanksgivings with my
grandfather and my step-grandmother were hit and miss.  My mother was close
to her brother, but when he and his first wife separated and divorced, she
became a Jehovah Witness and didn’t celebrate holidays anymore, so we rarely
saw my cousins after that.

Plus, my mother was a nurse, and sick people don’t take a break on holidays,
so she worked every other holiday.  On the holidays she had off, she wanted
to enjoy them rather than work like a dog to get a big meal on the table, so
more often than not, our Thanksgivings were just us, and not everyone else.

My mother was the glue who held our immediate family together, but when she
died, the delicate glue that held us together came apart and we began to
drift away from each other.  My dad remarried.  My stepmother had a large
family, but she didn’t like to do events which combined both families, so we
had these weird separate Thanksgivings with odd timings and days.

My brother and sister and I would get together with my grandma (my mother’s
mother), but that fell apart, too, as we got busier with our own families
and we had arguments and disagreements.  Our last link was when Grandma died
and the final bond was broken.

But I have my own family.  It’s a small group, but it is three generations
gathering together.  We eat, watch football, and play games.  It’s
traditional, it’s Norman Rockwell, but it could change in a minute.  And I
think that’s what my smug co-exerciser doesn’t understand.  Yes, her family
has been stable for a number of years, but a divorce, someone moving away,
remarriage, or the death of the person who is the one everyone gathers
around, can radically change what the family dynamics of holiday traditions.

I enjoy my family for what is now.  We had a great Thanksgiving and I’ve
tucked it away in my memory knowing very well there is no guarantee it will
be the same Thanksgiving next year.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net

http://www.bpwmn.org
Business and Professional Women of Minnesota

Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true
measure of our thanksgiving.
~W.T. Purkiser