"Aunt Holly?" Josie said as I picked her up from chess club the day before Thanksgiving. "I love spending time with you!"
Josie launched right into the plans she'd made for our playdate: gratitude books. She would show me a special technique for making a book without staples or stitching, and then over Thanksgiving we'd pass them around and everyone would write what they were thankful for on the book's blank pages. I explained that I'd be out of town for the holidays with friends but she assured me it would be alright - we'd each have a book for our own Thanksgiving location.
Our book-making project experienced a few delays. First, the organic frozen yoghurt shop for some pumpkin pie fro-yo (I've convinced myself that because it's organic, it has no calories). Then a crisis to be tended to - Josie's turkey centerpiece lost a few of its feathers. But then we settled into instructional time, Josie leading me step by step through the magical construction of a book bound by a few clever folds and cuts.
Josie launched right into the plans she'd made for our playdate: gratitude books. She would show me a special technique for making a book without staples or stitching, and then over Thanksgiving we'd pass them around and everyone would write what they were thankful for on the book's blank pages. I explained that I'd be out of town for the holidays with friends but she assured me it would be alright - we'd each have a book for our own Thanksgiving location.
Our book-making project experienced a few delays. First, the organic frozen yoghurt shop for some pumpkin pie fro-yo (I've convinced myself that because it's organic, it has no calories). Then a crisis to be tended to - Josie's turkey centerpiece lost a few of its feathers. But then we settled into instructional time, Josie leading me step by step through the magical construction of a book bound by a few clever folds and cuts.
The next day I announced to our friends over dinner: A New Thanksgiving Ritual. We could each write in the book, on our own time, and later Josie and I would share these gratitude books with each other. One old friend, absent from this gathering for the past five years, picked a page and wrote a beautiful tribute to all that deserved her thanks.
But then a funny thing happened. No one else wrote in the book. The artist who'd agreed to decorate it, didn't. And I didn't work the room to cajole participation. As I contemplated what I might write, I decided the best form of praise at the end of this challenging, rewarding, love- and grief-soaked year was quiet, wordless, a space of being rather than more doing.
I'd brought a photo of Marcy taken in this very place years ago. We'd spent so many Thanksgivings here together, so many slumber parties and celebrations. Her absence due to treatment side effects the prior year had been hard on us all. This year we'd welcomed Thanksgiving week with a gathering at her gravesite to inaugurate her new memorial bench. We'd huddled in a close circle to speak aloud what we were grateful to Marcy for, and to toast her with Proseco and Baci Perugina chocolates (each wrapped in a love note). Mt Hood, ghosted white against a cloudy sky, burst into golden light the rosy hue of Marcy's strawberry blond as we turned to leave.
But then a funny thing happened. No one else wrote in the book. The artist who'd agreed to decorate it, didn't. And I didn't work the room to cajole participation. As I contemplated what I might write, I decided the best form of praise at the end of this challenging, rewarding, love- and grief-soaked year was quiet, wordless, a space of being rather than more doing.
I'd brought a photo of Marcy taken in this very place years ago. We'd spent so many Thanksgivings here together, so many slumber parties and celebrations. Her absence due to treatment side effects the prior year had been hard on us all. This year we'd welcomed Thanksgiving week with a gathering at her gravesite to inaugurate her new memorial bench. We'd huddled in a close circle to speak aloud what we were grateful to Marcy for, and to toast her with Proseco and Baci Perugina chocolates (each wrapped in a love note). Mt Hood, ghosted white against a cloudy sky, burst into golden light the rosy hue of Marcy's strawberry blond as we turned to leave.
Thanksgiving morning I observed my solitary annual ritual, an homage to my Mom who composes the most beautiful dried flower arrangements. I set out to forage the dried seed pods and twigs and bark and rope hips that would become our centerpiece. I tucked them into a basket of pomegranates and nestled in a little piece of Marcy: a hand-carved wooden bird I'd given her that she'd caressed during many an hour on the chemo ward, that sat at her bedside until her husband had passed it on to me.
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