Today we give our thanks, most of all, for the ideals of honor and faith we inherit from our forefathers–for the decency of purpose, steadfastness of resolve and strength of will, for the courage and the humility, which they possessed and which we must seek every day to emulate. As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them.

Let us therefore proclaim our gratitude to Providence for manifold blessings–let us be humbly thankful for inherited ideals–and let us resolve to share those blessings and those ideals with our fellow human beings throughout the world.

-John F. Kennedy

If you spend some time googling the history of the first Thanksgiving, you’ll find many conflicting accounts.  But I want to tell you a true Thanksgiving story, a little closer to present day, as told by my grandfather to me.

It was 1941. My grandfather, Gilbert, was in love with my grandmother, Rita, but he could feel the looming shadow of the war, and he was determined not to marry her just to leave her a widow.  Putting their romantic plans on hold, he decided to enlist before he was drafted.  Yet when he showed up to enlist, he was rejected by each and every branch of the U.S. armed forces.  The reason? He didn’t have enough teeth.

Yet the prize for being too toothless to fight was great: my grandfather was now free to be with the woman he had loved for years–the only woman he would ever love, until her death and after.  They were married on Thanksgiving in 1941.  All was well…for a short while, at least.

Just over two weeks later it was December 7, 1941–the day of the attack on Pearl Harbor.  The United States had officially entered the war, and suddenly the army didn’t care so much about Pop-pop’s missing teeth–he was drafted.

What would happen next would be a tour of duty that would last four years, through North Africa, through the Mediterranean, to France for D-Day, and beyond.  Four years away from the woman he loved, the woman he had married on Thanksgiving.

One November toward the end of the war, my grandfather was living with a Welsh family that agreed to host him and another soldier while they were stationed there.  This family could have been annoyed that these American soldiers were sharing their space (maybe they still were).  They could have been indifferent to a holiday that was not theirs, that meant nothing to them (they probably still were).  But when the day came–some random Thursday in Wales–this family made them a Thanksgiving meal.

Now, my grandfather had an exceptionally appreciative relationship with food.  Well into his nineties he would describe the deliciousness of his mother’s bread and cakes as if he had tasted them yesterday.  I don’t know what was on the table at their Welsh Thanksgiving feast, but I am almost sure that it wasn’t what he would have eaten at home.  The stuffing would be all wrong, the cranberry sauce not quite right, for sure–if they even had those things to eat–but I am equally sure that it didn’t matter.  These kind and compassionate people  had not only taken foreign soldiers into their homes, but celebrated with them–celebrated for them–a holiday that was not theirs, because they knew what it would mean to them, these soldiers far from home, without their families.  What did it matter that this food didn’t taste exactly like home?  It was made with the same intention: love, appreciation, and care.  It was given the same ceremony, the same pause for reflection, the same sacred-ness.  It was a meal made with incredible empathy and kindness for these men who were far from home–and one, in particular, who might have been remembering his wedding day.

While at the same time in parts of the world not too far from where they were, incomprehensible horrors were taking place–meticulously maximized mass executions and mass graves, among many others–yet in this one place, on this one day, there was an island of compassion, love and caring–a few people crowded around a dinner table sharing a meal.

 

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We eat food every day.  If you’re like me, you’re usually wolfing it down while doing something else–working, writing, watching, reading.  But on Thanksgiving, the act of “eating food” becomes the act of “sharing a meal”–a meal that tells a story (even if the original story can never be known, or is not what we hoped it was) about who we want to be: people who face adversity with caring and friendship; people who take care of the people entrusted to us, even if they are those we don’t expect, or who are not of our choosing; people who belong to each other, however different they may seem.

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Thank you for being a part of this community–I hope you know that I am grateful for you.  And Happy Thanksgiving!   May it be a time to reflect, to appreciate, and to enjoy.  I hope that you are able to be with your family, the people who were the first to change our worlds, and whose worlds we changed.  I hope that you can love and enjoy them, or whoever you’re with on this day.

And that you get some peanut butter pie.  Goodness, I love my family’s peanut butter pie.

 

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A postscript for my family:

I hope you have some idea how much I love you and miss you.  And one of you–you know who you are–should know that what I am most grateful for this Thanksgiving is that you’re ok.  And that I am so inspired by and proud of how you have navigated the past year.  You are a superhero and will never stop being my role model. 

Oh, and also….peanut butter pie?  Please??