Bittersweet

When I was growing up, American Bittersweet was common in our corner of Wyandotte County  The housing addition where we lived bordered a wooded area that was dotted with the orange berries hanging from the trees. The woods, or timber as we called it, was an enormous play area appropriated by the neighborhood kids, for hiking, exploring, building tree houses, and daydreaming.  It was the place where I first started constructing stories in my head.  In retrospect, it probably did not encompass more than twenty acres, but we bravely surveyed every inch of it.  One of our favorite pastimes in the fall was hunting bittersweet and trying to pull it down from the tree limbs around which it was entwined.  We would take it back to our respective homes where it would become the centerpiece for Thanksgiving dinner.  

Now, years later, it seems very appropriate that bittersweet was associated with Thanksgiving.  This year will mark the first time that my mother has not been present at our family's bountiful Thanksgiving dinner.  It will be the first year that we will not have her famous potato rolls. Much like Lou Jacobi's famous line in the movie, Avalon, "You cut the turkey without me?"  it has become custom for one of the cousins to always ask, "Did Aunt Velma bring the potato rolls?" as he walks in the door, as if that is our primary reason for giving thanks.  At ninety-five and in the last stages of her life, attending the family dinner is no longer a possibility.  That prospect makes me wonder if we will have anything to be thankful for this year.  Not only will we not have her potato rolls, we will not have the camaraderie that centered around the remaining family matriarch.  Now the cousins from McPherson, Overland Park, Lee's Summit and Bentonville have nothing to travel to Emporia for, nothing to draw them together. 

The early settlers to this country, the ones who first offered thanks, were not relying on precedence or even bounty to give thanks.  They knew that gratefulness was not born out of abundance, not out of the comfortable trappings of their warm and cozy homes, not out of being surrounded by family and friends, not out of anticipation of the next day's shopping spree, but out of gratitude and hope. 

 None of the things we now associate with Thanksgiving:  the Macy's parade, turkey and dressing, pumpkin pie, college football games, or Black Friday, have anything to do with the circumstances of the Pilgrims. The early settlers left most of their friends and family behind in another land.  They were surrounded by death; only fifty of the original one hundred and two settlers survived.  Those that survived found themselves living in a harsh land with barely enough subsistence to maintain their lives.  If you've ever visited Plymouth Plantation in Massachusetts, you know that the huts they built for shelter were primitive at best and provided none of the comforts to which we have become accustomed.  As Edward Winslow, one of the colonists, wrote concerning their feast, "And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty."

"Not so far from want."  Would it occur to any of us to choose those words to describe our circumstances today?   Living in this country forged by the dreams of our forefathers, that has become a beacon of hope and prosperity to the world, not even the poorest among us comes close to the dire circumstances of the colonists whose dreams made our abundance possible. 

We truly are 'not so far from want.'  The material things that we consider ourselves thankful for cannot compare with the spiritual blessing of friends and family.  It is reflecting on the bitter loss of our friends and family that causes us to realize just how fortunate, how blessed we have been.  It is only in the midst of pain and loss that we realize how sweet our lives have been and continue to be.

This year, as we celebrate our day of thanks, the centerpiece of our celebration will once more be bittersweet.  But instead of the living plant, this year our centerpiece will be the living memories of those who have left us as they have moved on with their lives or to a better place, along with those we have left behind as we moved on as well.  We are truly blessed.  To paraphrase Edward Winslow, we are so far from want, so blessed with abundance, that we wish you could join us in our celebration of thanks.