by Deborah Rogers –
I’m thinking about loss at the moment. We’ve all experienced it this year in some form: loss of freedom; job loss; loss of connection with your grandkids, parents, soccer club or gym. Or the permanent loss of someone close to you, often without the chance to say goodbye. I don’t think anyone will think back on 2020 without remembering the things we had to give up, or what was taken from us.
Thanksgiving 2020 is going to look different from previous years. Large meals with extended family and friends will have to be replaced with smaller groups around the table, or maybe alternate arrangements outdoors. The holiday is traditionally a chance to celebrate the bounty of the harvest, and many take the opportunity to think back over the previous year and acknowledge everything that makes them thankful. How should we approach gratitude when our world currently seems so frightening? At first glance our losses, and our anxiety over the future, make it very hard to find things to be thankful for.
I know that there are families throughout our community who will be missing people from their Thanksgiving tables this October. Hopefully for most it is a temporary absence, but that won’t be the case for all. Even with these losses, though, I still think we can find things to be thankful for. Losing someone from your life can be a catalyst for good. We recall the things they taught us and vow to live better, or perhaps we cherish the people who still surround us just a little more.
When smoke blanketed the Peninsula in September we railed against apocalyptic skies that kept us indoors and forced us to acknowledge the consequences of climate change for our day-to-day lives. The Sunday the skies cleared I saw people all over the region heading out to trails and viewpoints:, soaking up the fresh air, and the views across the water. From a dark place came a true moment of thankfulness.
As Robin Wall Kimmerer writes in her beautiful book Braiding Sweetgrass, which the Seaside Magazine Book Club read this month: “If grief can be a doorway to love, then let us all weep for the world we are breaking apart so we can love it back to wholeness again.”
This Thanksgiving I hope you are all able to find that something in your life that you are grateful for, even if it comes from a place of loss, upheaval or fear.
