Gather Together
It’s hard to believe that Thanksgiving is upon us once again. Where does the time go? It seems like I was just setting the table for a big Easter breakfast, and now it’s turkey time.
This year, I thought it would just be my husband and me at our little table in the family room, but now it looks like we’ll have as many as ten people sitting at our dining room table. A friend asked me how I ended up with so many and I simply told her I asked them. What I have found over the years is that there are a lot of folks who have nothing planned for Thanksgiving, though we’re quick to assume that everyone we know will be with enormous families enjoying a Norman Rockwell kind of Thanksgiving. Not so. We live in a transient world and while many people I know in this small town have family who has been here for many generations, there are also plenty of us who have left our former lives behind—lives that were completely different from those we live today.
For instance; one of my friends in Spruce Pine was a rocket scientist in his former life (really and truly, that’s not just a caustic line for a joke), and today he runs an enormous apple orchard. Another friend was a pilot in Vietnam, and today owns a huge blackberry farm. Several of my friends are doctors and were corporate bigwigs, but now spend their days tutoring children at one of the elementary schools. Yet another is a geologist who now spends his time doing a myriad of things, including chasing a bear off of our mountain yesterday morning. At 8:00 a.m., there he went with several of his friends on their ATV’s (all terrain vehicles, for you city folks), gung ho to get that enormous black bear out of our backyards and back over to his own. I’m sure all thoughts of the properties of rocks were the last thing on my friend’s mind. He looked as excited as a kid on Christmas morning chasing that ol’ bear.
All of these people who are friends today come from different walks of life, but their paths have led them to this little town of ours. And, for many of them, large family gatherings are a thing of the past. So, I asked some of them to join us at our table, and they are coming, happily bringing contributions to the table, as well.
Though I’ll miss being with my family on turkey day, I’ll look forward to being with them at Christmas, if the fates allow. In the meantime, when I sit down with my husband, and friends who are like family at our Thanksgiving table, it’ll be like one large beautiful quilt has come together; each person being a unique and wonderful patch in it. Only this quilt will not warm my body, but will warm my heart, instead.
Wishing each one of you many blessings and a few unexpected pleasures this Thanksgiving.