Messages about Grief in Thanksgivings Past

As the twelfth holiday season after my brother Frank's death approaches, I have been reminiscing about the many Thanksgiving celebrations we shared during his life, pulling up my now-solo, and less complete, versions of the memories that we constructed together. When celebrating with my North Carolina-born grandmother, we enjoyed classic cornbread stuffing, and when up north with my Italian-American grandmother, she made delicious sausage stuffing. I had a great uncle who fancied creamed pearl onions on the menu, a dish which took me years to appreciate. When a younger cousin became a vegetarian, my grandmother began baking her a separate tin of stuffing in the oven, outside of the turkey. One year we had Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant with a great aunt we were visiting a few hours away, which felt odd and exciting and a little like breaking the rules. Then there was the time, much later when we were adults with our own children, when we met up at my parents' home for the Thanksgiving celebration. My mom, a practical sort who likes to minimize fuss, had purchased in-bag microwaveable potatoes. Frank, who had the most refined palate in the family, quietly sent me to the Giant Food to source some spuds to cook the old-fashioned way, and politely convinced Mom to save the bagged potatoes for another night. We served both the canned cranberry jelly and the fruit-laden kind, in an attempt to please all of the diners, and I brought homemade pumpkin pies. I bake them almost every year, but I can't always find the crookneck pumpkins that I like best for cooking down, so I make do with what's available. 

Frank managing gravy creation that Thanksgiving at my parents' place

I see lessons for grieving in these Thanksgiving stories. When you are with certain people, some options for managing or expressing grief are available, and with others, the options change. Sometimes, you become ready to try out a way of processing loss that didn't appeal to you for a long time. Other times, a choice you've made for years doesn't work for you anymore, and you make a change. Occasionally you might do something that seems to break a rule, but find that it adds a needed spark to your life. There are moments when what someone offers you doesn't work, and you need to assert yourself to choose something else. Variety, and allowing for differences, can help a range of people get what they need. And when you don't have something you normally count on to help you through, you might be able to approximate it with a substitution.

This year's edition of my pies, made with a cheese pumpkin from Giamarese Farm

Thanksgiving, for all of its seemingly rigid traditions and Norman Rockwell-inspired expectations, changes in unexpected and nonlinear ways for most people over time. So too does the experience of grief through the years. Reflect on what is changing for you -- or perhaps what you want to change intentionally. Be curious about what you need. Try something new, and keep it or discard it depending on how you feel. Let the way you keep your loved one with you change in ways that honor the changes within and without you.

I think sometimes, if my brother were alive, he would notice the ways that I am changing over time, and adapt to them, and our relationship would continue to evolve. I hope that by responding to my changing instincts around grief over time, I'm finding a semblance of that evolution with him.

I am grateful to share my stories, my grief, and my brother with you in this space. May a moment or two of peace come your way this Thanksgiving.