It’s Thanksgiving morning. I’m sitting in my usual chair having my coffee and looking at the fallen leaves outside my window. My thoughts are swirling. Memories. Of Thanksgivings past.

I catch a memory, my dining room table draped in a burgundy cloth, set with gold chargers under eggshell thin Lenox plates. Gold bamboo flatware, crystal goblets. The smell of turkey basting in the oven while I peel potatoes, then add milk, a pound of butter, salt and mash until they are smooth.

We gather around the table, bless the food and take turns saying what we are thankful for. My mom, my kids. My home, my table, my family.

When I was the center of their universe. When I carried the tradition. Macy’s Day parade on the TV; later football in the family room.

I toggle between grief and gratitude. Grief for the past. I loved hosting family and friends, the cozy feel of fall. The excitement of playing the first Christmas carols and the anticipation of Christmas. My cubs home, safe. Grief for loved ones gone, some recent, some long ago, many gone too soon. My childhood. I thought we would always be gathered around the table.

Gratitude for the present. My daughter and son-in-law are hosting this year. They set a beautiful, formal table replete with china and tablecover and cloth napkins. Candles lit, fire crackling in the fireplace, football in the background.

We’ve grown from a family of five to fifteen, including grandchildren. My daughter hosts her in-laws as well. I am grateful that she wants to do this, that she wants to keep some of the traditions, that my kids want to be together, that the grandkids get to play together.

Grief that my babies are all grown up; gratitude that our family has grown. Grief of missing my mom and dad and aunts and uncles and cousins. Gratitude that my kids are keeping the family tradition and their kids are surrounded by people who love them.

Kids grow up. It’s what they do. I can’t stop life from happening. I can only move along with it. Fight it or accept it. Live in the past or embrace the present. Today, I choose to embrace.

New home, different plates, same foundation – family.

As Kahil Gibran says, “…. and though they are with you yet, they belong not to you. For life goes not backwards nor tarries with yesterday. Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness.” (Full poem below.)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Angela DiCicco

On Children by Kahil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
     They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
     They come through you but not from you,
     And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

     You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
     For they have their own thoughts.
     You may house their bodies but not their souls,
     For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
     You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
     For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
     You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
     The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
     Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
     For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.