On Thanksgiving we gather at many tables, some with family, some with friends. The holiday can be brutal on those who are grieving because it insists that we be thankful, and on the first Thanksgiving after a death, all we may be able to feel is sorrow for the person who died.
The traditional things we celebrate on Thanksgiving are food, family, and home. If we haven’t recovered our interest in food, and we don’t have the energy to make our traditional holiday dishes, this option is out. Family means the people we usually gather with, but if they are tired of hearing about our grief, then we have to remain silent and sit on the side of their conversations. If we always spent Thanksgiving at home with the one who died, then anything we do on this day is likely to be a dirge.
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Years ago, on the first Thanksgiving seven months after my wife died, her loss was too fresh for me to be thankful for much of anything. Every night I felt like holing up in a dark bar, drinking beer after beer, and listening to Billy Joel, Billie Holiday, and melancholy saxophones late into the night until my grief went numb and I could safely return home.
On Thanksgiving Day, I try to think of something to be thankful for, even something small, because at dinner with Evelyn’s extended family, Barb is going to ask her traditional question, thinking that we should always be thankful for something. It’s going to be hard for any of us to answer that this year.
After picking up Evelyn’s mother, Marjorie, in Oakland, we head for Fremont where the family is gathering. Her protective shell has cracked and she is showing despair at having to bury her youngest child. She asks me why she wasn’t the one to die because she had a full life, her husband died five years ago after struggling with dementia, and her physical ailments are increasing.
The family table is decorated with dead things—pomegranates, dried Indian corn in their shocks, cut mauve and yellow flowers, and hollow gourds. At Thanksgiving we feast with the dead. Our gratitude for the harvest is dampened by the one who is not here, the one whose presence made each of us feel better. After the main part of dinner is over, and before the four kinds of pie are brought out, Beth asks how I’m doing. As if connected by one string, all the heads at the table turn toward me, anxious to hear what I’ll say.
I haven’t shared much with them over the months, and today everyone is being careful with the three of us. Barb has been going to a women’s support group and kept the family informed of how she’s doing, but I’m like Marjorie and not effervescent with my emotions. I probably should share more. Philosopher Martha Nussbaum says that our emotions contain an intelligence all their own. She writes, “Emotions are not just the fuel that powers the psychological mechanism of a reasoning creature, they are parts, highly complex and messy parts, of this creature’s reasoning itself.”
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Our lives do not end with someone’s death, even though it feels this way for a long time. One thing we can be grateful for are the people who stick by us by sending notes, bringing food over, and offering to go grocery shopping. They understand that while they can’t take the pain away, they can ease the burden of grief.
You don’t have to be traditional this year. Do something else. Do what you feel like doing. Go out for ice cream. See a movie. Walk through a nature preserve. Eat ethnic food instead of turkey. Honor your memories, but also find something that makes you smile, even if it’s just for an hour. Maybe what you’d like is a really good latte.
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