Giving Thanks

Tomorrow we will get in the car and drive 3 hours to spend Thanksgiving with Sister and Brother and various extended family members. The celebration will take place at the home of Sister and ex-Brother-in-law (they can't sell their house and can't afford to support 2 households, so they live together even though the marriage fell apart over 5 years ago). Ex-Brother-in-law will prepare the feast. Several months ago, he said he wasn't going to do Thanksgiving this year. He wasn't comfortable with Far Away Sister's in-laws driving to his home (he didn't think they should be driving at all), and he had various other reasons for deciding it was time to discontinue this particular tradition.

.

Last month I invited Sister and Little Niece to come here for Thanksgiving. Ex-Brother-in-law had a fit. "I'm cooking!"

.

"But you told me you weren't going to do it this year."

.

"That was before. What kind of jerk do you think I am? 'Sorry your Dad died, you're on your own for Thanksgiving.'"

.

Brother hasn't been around much for holidays since he began dating his wife-- there were too many family obligations on her side. I figured we'd seen the last of them at Thanksgiving. Initially he was talking about them stopping by Sister's on their way elsewhere, but now he has determined that they are going to spend the whole day with our family.

.

Daughter has been very concerned about the whole family falling apart because Grandma and Grandpa are dead. Tomorrow she will see that even with all the stress of this past year, including the discovery of theft and periods of refusing to speak to one another, we are going to be together on Thanksgiving. We are still a family.

.

I've had several conversations with Far Away Sister today. I've put her down as my emergency contact person for my new doctor. I told her that's her reward for being my rational sibling. She said that was fine, because after yesterday she had expertise in tracking down missing people and getting them to the hospital. Brother-in-law has now decided that the problem is that he mixed up his medication yesterday morning and took a sleeping pill instead of his blood pressure medication. We'll see if that means he's decided he doesn't need to follow-up with a cardiologist and neurologist as they told him to in the ER. She's looking forward to a quiet Thanksgiving with just the 4 of them. They will begin decorating the house. Brother-in-law will leave for 2 weeks on the other side of the world on Sunday.

.

Tomorrow I will give thanks for my family. I will give thanks for the love that binds us together in spite of our disagreements. I will give thanks for the fact that we can laugh when Sister forgets there is a 3 hour time difference and calls Far Away Sister and wakes her up on a Saturday morning to complain about cell phone plans she doesn't understand. I will celebrate the love of our parents, a love so strong that it holds 4 very different individuals together as one family even after their death. Tomorrow I will be giving thanks.