Thanksgiving?

Sitting here, I happened to glance at the calendar on the wall.  Thanksgiving is two weeks away.  It seems that … I think that … oh, I don’t know, right now I just can’t imagine that I will be in the mood to be thankful so soon.

I expect that I will head on over to the Boston Market on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, buying one of their turkey dinners with all the trimmings to go, as I’ve done the past five years, and then re-heating it on Thanksgiving afternoon.  Mom’s caregiver will leave town again for the holiday, and I’ll be here sleeping on the couch during the long weekend.  Like prior years, I’ll miss cooking a turkey at home, and the smell of the food roasting and baking, and the company of friends.  And the laughter.  And I’ll miss the mass, the days of intimate touching of my Lord, and the quiet of the times we spend together.  And this year I think it will be more than that.  I’ll miss more, than even that.

A dark cloud just seems to be hanging about me, and the country.  I keep waiting for a thunderclap, or maybe a bolt of lightning to strike.  Or even refreshing rain, to make the air feel cooler and less heavy, but it’s only 40 degrees outside today.  Why does it feel so much warmer?

I received a note from my friend, Jeanne, last night.  She had a doctor’s appointment yesterday afternoon for an MRI to check her back, where she had received one of those tainted pain shots about a month ago, which have killed so many people.  This morning I saw another note from her; they discovered an abscess where she received the shot, and she was checked into St. Joseph’s hospital.  “Pray for me,” she said.

Maybe I won’t even buy that turkey dinner for Thanksgiving.  I don’t think it will taste very good.  Some of my homemade hot chili seems more appropriate.  I want something that burns, to distract me from other pains. 

The priest was sick again this morning, and so we had no mass, nor adoration afterwards.  The chapel emptied quickly after the communion service, and things were very quiet, empty, alone.  Dark.  I sat there a while, but my mind was as quiet as the surroundings.  No inspirations from Him.  The words I am writing now are just mine, alone.  Oh, I know He hasn’t left me, or our country.  If anything, I, and we, have left Him. 

Right now, my feet feel leaden, not wanting to move, even to move closer to Him.  I don’t seem to want happiness right now; it wouldn’t seem right somehow, to be happy now. 

I know I said that I write these words here to help relieve my anxieties, and perhaps yours.  And these words don’t seem to fit that purpose.  But these words ARE different; they are my words, my feelings.  They’re kind of like the newspaper headlines I kept down in the basement, headlines from the financial collapse of 2008.  They are words describing things that couldn’t happen, like fairytales, but they did happen.  I want to keep those papers to remind me to never forget what CAN happen, and that even after what seemed a huge disaster, God was with me.  I want to keep those records to remind me.  And I want to keep these too.

Thanksgiving?  I’m not in the mood.  All the papers say we are a country divided after this election, as we were before, but we wouldn’t admit it.  But now the fact stares us in the face, and we can’t look away.  Certainly I don’t see any way to unite us; I have no grand suggestions.  I have, and will continue to have prayers, for this country, --- and for my friends, and then I guess I’ll just wait.  I think I’ll stay in this spot for a while, to kind of get used to the situation in my mind.  Time heals all wounds, they say.  We’ll see.

Meanwhile I can think of one thing OUR President could do to help unite this country:  he could issue one of his executive orders and declare that there will be no Thanksgiving this year, as the country tries to somehow heal.  Perhaps he could move it into next year, maybe during the Springtime, when we might be more in a mood to give thanks. 

If he did this, I think his popularity would have a noticeable spike.  And I might be in a better mood.