I was feeling pretty grinchy about Thanksgiving this year. (Is there a Thanksgiving Grinch?)
I kvetched to David (The Wonderful Husband) about having to make dinner for other people, again. I complained to him about having to clean the house, again. I whined about having to eat gloppy food (my least favorite food group), again.
I missed my mom, dead two years. A lot. I missed my daughter Elise in Nicaragua. I missed the rest of my family in Montgomery, where we gathered every year when my mom was alive: sisters, brother, their kids, the clan.
Sisters, my silk panties were in a seriously grinchy twist.
I told David I'd be happy if I never celebrated Thanksgiving again. What was all the fuss about, anyway? I proposed Toshi's teriyaki, just the two of us. David kindly listened and bought turkey and stuffing for 5.
Despite my best efforts, Thanksgiving rolled around. I did my best to avoid it that morning, while David cooked.
And then I received a lovely email from dear friends in New Orleans. I got two emails from my daughter. My clan called from Montgomery.
My spirits started to lift.
Elise called, after wrestling with Nicaraguan cell phones for a week. My neighbor Rischa stopped by and we talked mom stuff and girl stuff.
By the time David's mum and brother and our next door neighbor came for dinner, shortly afterwards, my heart had grown several sizes. Shades of Dr. Seuss.
I set a beautiful table with my grandmother's china and silver. There was good conversation, lots of laughter, memories recounted. I even enjoyed the Thanksgiving gloppy food, kinda sorta.
I fell in love with my husband all over again, all of us sitting in the living room after dinner with plates of almond pumpkin pie on our laps and cats roasting by the fire.
At 4 am the next morning, I realized I had actually fallen in love with life all over again. I lay in bed aching with indigestion and Big Love.
I understood that Thanksgiving, at its sweet uncommercial core, is really about Big Love. Big Love, resplendent love, flowing like a river through us, around all our fears and foibles.
I had demanded of life that week before Thanksgiving that it be MY way: my mom back from the dead, my daughter home from the wilds of Central America, my far-flung family come to me from Montgomery and New Orleans. That the economy magically improve. That I magically heal from the autoimmune disorder that's been plaguing me bad all year.
Sisters, looking back, I was one rather hefty boulder in that Big Love river. But the amazing thing was that Big Love didn't give a rip how grinchy I was feeling.
It just keep on pouring through and over and around my heart, and the hearts of my family and friends.
And lying there at 4 am, curled up to my warm snoring husband, it felt like my heart was just gonna burst with Big Love. My daughter was with me, right there, and my mom. And Dick and Helen and Charlotte and Mike in New Orleans. And my sisters and brother and nieces and nephew. And grandparents from Thanksgivings past, and Bob in New York, and Alana in LA, and Barb and Karl in Edmonds, and Janet just on the other side of Greenlake.
I gotta tell you, sisters: It was one big bed.
In Big Love, geography doesn't matter. In Big Love, even death isn't an obstacle. There I was, doing my best just to keep breathing, suffused by so much love. I finally had to say Yes, not just a little peep of a conditional yes (well, yes if the economy improves ... if I can sleep at night again ... if my daughter stays safe). It had to be a Big Yes, an unconditional Yes, in response to such Big Love.
And there, in the dark, in the pre-dawn quiet, nestled into my husband ... what? ... I want to write that something dramatic happened. But it didn't.
I simply lay there in the translucent grace of the ordinary: the rise and fall of David's breath. A siren in the distance. My still-full belly. And all around me, all around us, all through us, this Big Love.
...
Next morning, I felt like the Grinch bringing back the toys and the food for the feast. I wanted to have Thanksgiving all over. Maybe even daily for several weeks.
I guess I'll have to wait a year (not for Big Love, but for the holiday). But I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving coming round again.
Even the gloppy food.
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