More from John H. Danner

Once Halloween is past, with its ghosts and goblins and endless amounts of candy, we will find ourselves inundated with reminders to purchase all manner of food for the Thanksgiving meal. Television, print, and social media ads will display pictures of multi-generational families gathered around what my spiritual ancestors called “the groaning board.” Folks will travel hundreds of miles to share the meal, catch up on family gossip, maybe watch some football, and take a few moments to offer words of thanks.

Personally, my wife and I will be traveling north to share in a Thanksgiving meal with my 92-year-old mother who has Alzheimer’s and mobility issues, my sister Sue, and my brother Bob and his wife, Carol, who have both had surgery this year. Missing from the table will be my youngest brother Mark, who died suddenly this spring of a massive heart attack.

It has been a difficult year for the Danners. But here’s the truth. We also have so very much for which to be thankful. While Mom suffers from memory loss and often uses a wheelchair these days, she is still with us, always ending her phone calls and in person visits with the words, “I love you!” And she is safe in a very fine memory care facility, where there are staff members who truly care about her. My brother Bob and his wife have good health insurance, and access to doctors and hospitals where they can receive competent care. And Sue has just moved into senior-citizen housing where she is making her new apartment her own. Blessings abound!

As for my wife, Linda, and I, we have moved to North Carolina since I wrote the piece that appears in The Upper Room, where we are able to be close to our late son’s widow (yes, another family death in the last two years) and their two daughters. Just being grandparents is for us a real blessing! And we have nine grandchildren up and down the East Coast.

We will certainly remember Mark and Bruce as we gather at the table, but we will also pause amidst the turkey and the “fixins” to offer thanks that they were and are still, in some way I can’t begin to understand, part of our lives.