Thanksgiving Day Introspection and Gratitude

by Dr. Patricia Yarberry Allen

I did not feel well enough to travel this holiday. Normally, I would have pushed my way through it but my husband gave me this gift of the day, the turkey and stuffing and pumpkin pie that I needed for my soul. I needed time to be and not do more than I could do, for just one holiday. I have never been fond of holidays, except for my birthday and July 4th; but I have always given it my best effort at often significant cost.

My family is all happily ensconced in the bosom of extended family experience: my husband and step sons, Garrett and Hunter are with our Michigan family celebrating the first Thanksgiving together since the death of the family matriarch, my beloved mother in law, Natalie McIntyre, who died on Mother’s Day, 2008. Jane, the baby of the family, is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America and has been in charge of creating the most delicious Thanksgiving foods in America for almost twenty years now, so this part of the family ritual will be the same. And of course she does it effortlessly. None of the chaos that is found in my Thanksgiving kitchen would be allowed in the kitchen of the yellow house in Orchard Lake. The family is connecting with old and new ways of celebrating this year and I know that each one there will be redefining the family so that it will endure.

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