Writing Myself Out Of Tears pt. 1 (November 2, 2019)

When I was a kid, Thanksgiving was a big holiday in my family. Everyone–and I mean everyone– was there. Over 100 of us all piled into my great grandfather’s garage. Three huge turkeys from dad, Auntie Jane, and Auntie Karen; hundreds of cookies from Mary and me; and endless tickles from Uncle Jimmy. 

I love holidays. With a big family like mine, they are the one time we all get together. And boy do we make a big deal of them. 

I loved holidays. With a once big family like mine, they were the one time we all got together. And boy did we make a big deal of them.

Now we don’t talk about them. Don’t talk about the empty seats that will never be filled. Don’t talk about the abundance of leftovers because we refuse to accept the dwindling number of those in attendance. Don’t talk about the silence that was once filled with laughter. 

We just let them come, going through the motions of when and where, who and what. 

And we’re happy.

And we’re blessed.

And we write all the reasons why we’re thankful on balloons and set them into the sky so everyone who should be in those empty seats knows that we’re alright–even though we miss them. (Yes, it might not be environmentally friendly, but it was all I could come up with six years ago and it stuck.)

Because even though they’re gone, there is still a whole family down here that gets it. And we’ll stick together.

Somebody has to eat the leftovers, right?