Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving in the United States, and yet another Eid here in the UAE.  Eid-ul-Adha marks the traditional Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, where millions of Muslims circle the temple in Saudi Arabia ,

as well as when goats are sacrificed to remember the prophet Ibrahim's willingness to sacrifice his son at the command of Allah.  The goats are sacrificed to symbolize the willingness of Ibrahim to do Allah's bidding, but the sacrifice is also an act of thanksgiving as well, because Allah did not require Ibrahim's son and replaced the boy with a goat at the penultimate moment.
Quite a similar story to Thanksgiving, a time when turkeys are sacrificed (all right, outright inhumanely slaughtered) to celebrate the bounty as a reminder of everything we have to be thankful for.  This entire week I have been remembering Thanksgivings past.  Perhaps the better phrase is "haunted by" Thanksgivings past, like a mashed-potato loving Ebenezer Scrooge.

Here's a quick recap of some of my bad Thanksgivings:  last year, my dad couldn't see how easy it would be to push Mom's recliner (she was post-operative) to the Thanksgiving table, even though we all knew (or at least thought) it would be Mom's last Thanksgiving; I told my family I was an atheist at the Thanksgiving table; I wished Jay McCoy (absolutely ruined by Alzheimer's) a happy Thanksgiving, then I agreed with him that buckwheat pancakes couldn't be beat; I joined my dad in a Convict Thanksgiving (we were searched for any type of metal); I watched the brother of my new found friend Shannon slip into a coma (he had brain cancer) on a Thanksgiving night.  I know that I can't always see the bright side of things, but the Thanksgiving holiday hasn't been good to me for 17 years...until last year. (Yes, the same last year as the chair dust-up with my father.)

Last year, my sister and I went shopping with her two kids, Kobe and Destiny.  They were confronted with a choice:  run around the store with me or drive the shopping cart.  Destiny chose to go with me, Kobe chose the shopping cart.  Kobe lost.  Because I wasn't pushing the shopping cart.  Destiny and I roamed the store (which was a big one), with the only rule being that she couldn't turn down an aisle unless I was right behind her.  I taught her that she shouldn't take the first thing she picked in  the produce section, that she had to open egg cartons before buying them. I lifted her up to so she could grab a can of pineapple from the top shelf, and I demonstrated the subtle difference between cranberry sauce and jellied cranberries (ok...so my sister Jennie did that, for both of us.  Don't ruin the moment.).

Days like today, all I think about is that difference: how we are slightly different from each other, and how much that doesn't matter.  Gelid, slightly cooked, solid: we are all cranberries.  Soft and sour, we naturally lack sugar.  That sugar, that grace, comes from others:  the sweetness of relationships overrides our innate bitterness.  And though I am more bitter than most, I thank all of you for being my sugar.  Enjoy Thanksgiving.  Eid Mubarak!