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My mother loved Thanksgiving. She savored planning the menu that, with rare exception, was exactly the same year after year.  She'd be at the front door with flour on her red plaid apron, as we arrived home from college, or later with our babies wrapped up warm after a long car ride.

My four siblings and I, and in time our spouses, children and anyone else connected to our lives, gathered every year at our childhood home to eat, drink and get very merry.  Our annual celebration was a measure of how much we loved and were loved; recognition of belonging to this tribe; a crazy quilt of shared history, stories good and some not so good, and some that required fact checking. It was, for as many years as I can remember, how we celebrated this November holiday. 

But things change. Our mother passed away and our lives shifted in a number of different directions. We continued our family gatherings first at our family home with our father, and then after he died, at my sister's home. We're a musical family so there was always music and wonderful, albeit the same, food with exceptions made for new members adding their family recipes.  Our lasting tradition was that at the end of the meal each person said what they were grateful for that year. Sometimes funny, maybe some redundancy, some emotional and teary...but every Thanksgiving we said out loud our individual blessings. After each sharing, everyone clapped. 

I've been thinking about what it is that our hearts and minds yearn for in our traditions, especially when they aren't available.  Our COVID-19 experience this year brings us face to face with a stark, new reality. Life is temporary and so are we. The memories of our past and the dreams and fears of our future are not in our control.  Yet what we do have, and always will, is this exact moment...this exact second. How we choose to live each present moment is the luxury only for the living. And that my friends, is us...right now.

My mother, in addition to loving Thanksgiving and life, managed the cemetery for our church.  Her work required planning for death. At least for the death of others. She sold burial plots with single or double depth to those wishing to complete their life plan.  While she mourned the loss of her church neighbors she was vigilant in overseeing the work of the grave diggers to ensure a perfect plot preparation and burial. The grave diggers were her friends and our dining room was on occasion filled with wilting white gladiolus and pink carnations, complements of her friends' access to the latest burial bouquet. An oddly lovely gift. 

As we look forward to this 2020 Thanksgiving and a long winter of uncertainty I look back to my mother's life experience. We are here temporarily and while we're here we need to make the apple pies, the sweet potatoes, and turkey even if we are alone. We can celebrate without sitting next to our family and friends because we know they are where they need to be. We hope next year will be different. 

All we have is this moment and Zoom and for now that's what we need.  We each have abundant blessings that gift us with the knowledge that we have survived so far, and with care and kindness in these rarest of  times, we will live to love those glorious days to come. 

Wishing blessings and a happy Thanksgiving to all!

Maryclare