What We Talk About When We Talk About Thanksgiving

 

It turns out that absence really is the best way to develop gratitude.

This year, the night before we give thanks for what we have, I'm thinking of all the things we don't have this year. The things we lost. The things we hope to get back.

On previous Thanksgiving Eves, I would skip the bar hopping and take a trip into New York City for the day to see theater. I tell people that the day before Thanksgiving is the best day to visit the city. There aren't as many people, the weather is usually great, and you get that wonderful train ride home alongside everyone else heading home for the holiday.

But no theater this year, and not that many people returning home who didn't already return months ago.

I remarked to someone in April when friends from all over started coming back to stay with family in the hopes of riding out the pandemic that it felt like the holidays, but was also frustrating, because we associate the holidays with reunions and coffee dates with old friends and Friendsgiving and--like everything else--none of that is happening this year.

But I like to find opportunity in crisis, and it seems like Thanksgiving, more than any other tradition that's been compromised this year, has the most to offer in the way of opportunity.

What I mean is--

A day that's supposed to be about reflecting on what we have to appreciate seems like the perfect time to take in the immense losses we've suffered, not just this year, but in years past, and to take summation of what remains after the devastating collective fire that's been raging.

It's a chance to really put ourselves in the shoes of people who've never really gotten to celebrate the kind of picture-perfect Thanksgiving and holiday season that the rest of us enjoy. Some of those people have had their sacrifice made plain by the work they've been doing over the past year--doctors, nurses, essential workers.

Suddenly we're having a much harder time drowning out other people's sacrifice with Christmas music and the laughter of friends. It stretches beyond that as we think about isolation for the first time. Loneliness. What it must be like for people who don't have places to go to every year on days when the rest of us are surrounded by loved ones. Maybe in the midst of so much illness, we're forced to stop and think about people who've been dealing with illness for years, but who were easy to forget about, because this time of year is all about colored lights and decoration.

I'm not saying we should try to settle into a depression, and in fact, many people are already struggling more than ever with their mental health. I'm saying that everything we used to take for granted really has taken on a new importance as we see those who can no longer count themselves among the employed or the sheltered or even the ones who are able to put food on their table.

The most dangerous thing about grief is our unwillingness to confess to it, and that's because it feels so central to our individual experiences. But now we're all grieving, and for the first time, the shame associated with that very public way of addressing grief finally seems ready to evaporate.

Private pain has become unsustainable as we all stare at the same fire.

And while anger has been a prime facet of the country we've all been living in, what better antidote is there to anger than gratitude?

It seems we're faced with a unique moment in human history.

We can't bring back the people we've lost, but the traditions we're forgoing, the gatherings we aren't able to have, those we aren't able to embrace--

Think about what you say after you lose someone.

I wish I had a little more time.

Many of us are going to be given that time. 

We'll be given that extra year and a year after that and maybe more after that. 

And will we remember this year?

This year where so many were despondent and aggrieved, worried about money and unable to keep their businesses open, or their dreams intact.

Will we remember it?

Because it seems as though remembering it would be the best thing we could do if we want to continue having Thanksgiving and have it really mean what it's supposed to.

A friend recently told me that they weren't worried about everything returning to normal, because they were optimistic that it would, but that they were concerned we would go back to overlooking the gifts in our lives. The ability to walk around without a mask on. The chance to see a movie when we feel like it. To call up a friend and grab dinner at a restaurant without giving it a second thought.

Frivolous things. Things that barely matter when you consider what's pressing down on millions of other Americans and people around the world.

Tomorrow will be a lonely day, because reflection is often like that.

Nobody ever spends time alone with their thoughts and find themselves singing and dancing after a few minutes.

It's usually quite somber.

But it's a step on the road to looking at what's around you and realizing how much you have. It's understanding that while only seeing your relatives on a computer screen is frustrating, it's still something to be able to talk to them, to say "I love you," to promise you'll all be together again and feel confident that you can keep that promise.

It's being happy that we have silly things like a world of entertainment at our fingertips to help keep our minds occupied throughout all of this. I often think that if this had happened when I was kid, I would have gone mad from boredom by now (my apologies to books, but I don't think I read a single one in all of March and April. It required too much engagement). I needed endless movies and television shows and podcasts and things I could put on to help numb the reality of it all, and I say that while knowing that for many people, reality was brutally unavoidable.

It's knowing that whatever we had planned for this year can be rescheduled, re-imagined, or yes, lost but for good reason. Many of us needed an excuse to slow down and take stock anyway. It should not take a pandemic to make that happen, but here's hoping we can do it again without one next time. What's the point of having weddings and birthdays and going on vacations if we spend all of them on our phones making sure to document them for everybody but ourselves? How much were we all already losing before this began?

Time is a horrible thing to lose.

But it's an even worse thing to take for granted, because it's denied to so many.

I have so much to be thankful for, and I do not presume to understand how much you might have to be thankful for, but I hope whatever you're lacking right now as you read this, that you get it tenfold by this time next year.

It's been hard, and it'll inevitably get worse before it gets better, but we still have a moment right now--even as you're reading this--to put down the phone or step away from the computer, reach out to a friend, donate a few dollars to a charity, or just take a second to breathe.

And that moment that exists right now for so many of us--a moment to do something good for someone else or ourselves that is not going to change the world, but could create something in the world that isn't filled with the smoke from an everlasting fire?

That is certainly something for which we can be grateful.