thanksgiving

This morning the pictures popped up: “Today three years ago!”

A cup of coffee delivered from my brother, Aaron.

My husband posing with a smoked turkey.

A picture of butter in the shape of a turkey that I’d bought a few weeks before in anticipation for this day.

Thanksgiving 2022. My younger brother, Zach, was not even two months dead. All I wanted was to be with my siblings, because I felt like no one else could understand the depths of my pain. My husband and I were hosting Thanksgiving, and that morning my daughter woke up with a fever, so we canceled, and I was crushed. I went to Safeway to pick up potatoes to mash. The plan had been for someone else to bring those, so we didn’t have any. I stood in the Safeway aisle and wondered how many other people were also completely shattered, somehow finding ourselves functioning enough to get dressed and drive to Safeway. I wanted to tell the other shoppers I wasn’t there because I was waiting til the last moment. I had a goddamned turkey-shaped butter, for crying out loud! I was very prepared! I was in my oversharing stage of grief, so if someone had happened to ask me why I was standing confused in the ice cream aisle, trying to understand which vanilla would work best with the pie we already had at home, I probably would’ve told them that my heart was broken and I wasn’t sure I could keep going.

Later that day, I almost broke all the plates in our house. I didn’t break any, but I had a sudden surge of anger and pulled out stacks of my colorful fiesta ware, threatening to throw them across the kitchen. I didn’t know then that grief was like that. Sudden rushes of anger and adrenaline that end with lying on the floor, crying with pain that cannot be relieved.

So we had our turkey and mashed potatoes and pie and ice cream. My daughter’s fever was managed, and she was better within a few days.

In those days, I wanted to be able to say something to the void and to find somewhere to express my pain. I learned pretty quickly that social media was not the place to do that. I had someone tell me that they listed their home with someone else because I “seemed too sad,” and in a real estate market that was drastically declining, missing out on business because of being a bummer was not a risk I was willing to take. My husband took over both of our roles as I was unable to work, but based on my cheery socials at the time it would be hard to know what he knew: I slept three hours a night, I spent my waking hours on the floor or on the couch, alternating between staring out the window or crying uncontrollably. I left the house only to pick my daughter up from school (waiting until the very last minute to get out of my car, because I didn’t want to see anyone) and to go to my Thursday Winco shopping trips (which is where I found the butter-shaped turkey!).

I thought about all of this today when I saw the pictures pop up from three years ago.

Today, I am thankful for my husband, for my daughter, for friends we shared a meal with today, for family, for football games to watch, for a gym to go to, for books to look forward to reading at bedtime, for all of my friends—especially the ones who stuck with me through the comatose days, with memes and coffee drop-offs and late-night texts and so much grace. I’m thankful that, even though life can be brutal and terrifying and there are the darkest, sleepless nights, it’s also beautiful—and there are mornings when I walk and it’s so dark; I can see the stars and think about how long it’s taken for the light to get to my eyes, at that moment, in my driveway.

11/24/22 Thanksgiving table: the turkey shaped butter & the plates I didn’t break. & unplanned at the time, poetic now, a glass of water in a Sisu pint glass.