Thanksgiving & Gratitude Amidst the Grief

Canadian Thanksgiving is just a speck in the rear-view mirror, having occurred early in October. Today is the celebration of abundance and gratitude in the United States, although with more roughly 270,000 COVID deaths and a million new cases a week there is a pall over the nation. We've seen the lines of vehicles stretching for miles in some American cities as unemployed people wait for food. Millions are choosing to stay away from family gatherings because of the coronovirus, even as many more will be mindful of those whose lives were ended by an invisible virus. 

It is a rather bleak picture, but one US writer reminds us that while Thanksgiving is a day for feasting and gratitude, history suggests that from the very beginning there was an powerful element of grief attached to the occasion. In a piece with the long-winded title Thanksgiving has always been about grief. Pass the mashed potatoes.Marking both grief and gratitude isn’t antithetical to the Thanksgiving holiday; in fact, it’s baked into its very history author Jana Reiss notes that of the 102 Pilgrims who came as settlers in 1620, 51, or half, died in the first year. If it weren't for the Indigenous people who aided them, the death toll would have been much higher. 

Through history people have figured out how to give thanks at meal tables and worship settings despite the realities of epidemics and wars and personal losses. 

I've wondered, through the years, what it was like to celebrate Christmas during WWII and I regret not asking my late mother, who was 14 when the war broke out, about her recollections. We are experiencing some anticipatory grief at the prospect of a family Christmas sans cherished members of our family because of COVID restrictions. And yet I feel so grateful that our adult children are healthy and employed, and that our school-age grandchildren are able to attend each day. 

Because we live in an Ontario "green zone" we are still able to participate in Sunday worship and we're looking forward to the baptism of one of our grandsons this weekend. We are literally choosing to count our blessings, one by one, while acknowledging our losses and being mindful of the pain of so many. 

At the end of her article Reiss offers this:

So this Thanksgiving, I’ll be celebrating the joy of life while also reflecting on its transience and the terrible losses 2020 has dealt so many people in our country and around the world. Marking both grief and gratitude isn’t antithetical to the Thanksgiving holiday; in fact, it’s baked into its very history.