To Be Grateful

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Tuesday

Two days before Thanksgiving, on North’s first full day in Wheeling, they did schoolwork for much of the day and I worked on a long-form blog post about nootropics, as I had the day before. Beth’s aunts Susan and Carole dropped by separately. I saw Susan, but missed Carole, as I was out on a walk.

Late that afternoon we did a photo shoot for our Christmas card in Wheeling Park. I wanted to do it that day because it was going to get colder as the week progressed, though as it was it was still kind of chilly to be out without jackets in the late afternoon.

In 2016, I didn’t know what to do about the Christmas card. This is what I said about it:

A few days ago, I told Beth I was thinking of not doing a Christmas card this year. It just seemed like a lot of work and it was hard to imagine putting a smiling picture of us on the front of it or writing a cheerful letter about what we’ve been up to this past year. The annual card means more to me than to her, so I thought she might go along with the idea of taking a pass. Instead she looked surprised.

I said I wasn’t sure if it was just post-election depression and if I’d regret it later if we skipped a year. She asked if I’d thought it was too much work last year. I said no, so clearly it was post-election depression, but that the part I wasn’t sure about was whether I’d regret it or not. She gently suggested we take some pictures at the beach “just in case.” We discussed the possibility of sending a card with no letter, of taking a more pensive looking picture, of putting some political message on the card.

I’m still not sure what we’re going to do, but I think she handled it just right. If she’d said that we should do the card, I might have said it was pointless and started crying. If she’d said sure, let’s skip it this year, I probably would have cried, too, because that would mean it really was pointless.

We ended up doing cards that year. I suggested to the kids that they look pensive, and Noah did, but North didn’t. I can’t remember what we did about the letter, and I can’t find one in the folder where I keep those documents, so it’s possible we skipped it, but my filing is not impeccable and other years are missing, too.

I felt similarly about the card this year, but we couldn’t stare moodily at the ocean on this year’s card because we weren’t at the beach. Before the election, we’d planned to pose by the Christmas decorations at the lodge at Oglebay but I couldn’t imagine doing anything so cheery now. So, instead of our usual red and green color scheme, I asked everyone to dress in muted, nature-evoking colors (blues, greens, and browns) and we posed in the autumnal, less decorated landscape of Wheeling Park. They all indulged me. Beth asked jokingly, if I’d like to take the photo in the cemetery that’s adjacent to the park and the thing is, while we were standing there with the hill of graves in sight, I had actually thought of that, but I didn’t want to go that far. Plus, as North said, it would be disrespectful of the dead to use their gravestones as props.

We walked around taking pictures by various bushes and trees, some bare, some evergreen, and some with red berries or leaves. The graveyard did show up in the background of some of them. I told people to smile or not, as they chose. I alternated between small smiles and more somber expressions. Then we approached the lake with its “Danger. Thin Ice” sign and took some pictures there (for Facebook, rather than the card), as it seems to be a good representation of the outlook for 2025.

It turned out to be comforting outing, being outside with the four of us all together, joking a little in a dark sort of way. I asked North if it was nice being back with their “weird family.”

They said, “Yes. Is it nice being back with your weird kid?”

I said, “Yes.” And it was.

When we’d finished the shoot, we went to warm up with coffee, tea, and hot chocolate at the coffeehouse in the park. Then we went back to Beth’s mom’s house and North and I collaborated on an improvised vegetable soup for dinner.

Beth and I checked into a hotel that night. This was the plan all along because her mom’s condo is small for five people. But since North had arrived earlier than expected, we’d managed the night before with Beth, Noah, and me in the guest room (he was on an air bed) and North on another air bed in the living room.

Wednesday

In the breakfast room of the hotel in the morning, I entertained myself by people watching. (Beth and I went down separately because I wasn’t ready when she was.) I heard a little boy complaining that his brother had sausage, and he did not have any. His mother fetched him some sausage and then he exclaimed indignantly, “I didn’t want sausage!”

Next a college-age young man in the same party tucked a few packages of Nutella into his pocket and his father (or maybe stepfather—based on the ages of the four kids it could have been a blended family) said, “What are you doing with your life that you’re stashing Nutella?” It wasn’t said in a joking way either. He seemed to mean it. The young man, undeterred, started putting muffins into his backpack while the (step)father started to mansplain Tik-Tok to a teen girl, opining it was “all about trends.”

Eventually I tore myself away from this fascinating family and Beth and I went for an hour-long walk in Oglebay park. We checked out the site where the winter carnival is running in the afternoons and evenings. There was a tiny skating rink with artificial ice (made of plastic). Beth decided she was not interested in skating in such a small area. We looked at all the Christmas trees decorated in different themes (culinary, floral, animal-themed, patriotic, athletic, and one dedicated to the Oglebay family—iron barons who donated the grounds of the park and its mansion one hundred years ago).

Back at the lodge, we stopped for coffee, a muffin, and biscotti. It was there I heard my first Christmas music in the wild this year (an instrumental version of “God Rest Ye, Merry Gentleman”) and from then on it was full-on Christmas music, which Beth pointed out was not surprising given that the Festival of Lights is in progress.

We went back to Beth’s mom’s house and found North cleaning up from having made pie crust. We stayed long enough for Noah and me to read for a half hour (We were near the end of The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires) and then have lunch. Then Beth, the kids, and I went to see Wicked.

The situation in the theater was very strange. In the lobby, there was just one kiosk for tickets and no staff other than those selling concessions. The kiosk was serving both people who needed to buy tickets and those who had bought them online and still needed to print them. The lines for both concessions and the tickets kiosk were quite long, so we split up. The kids got popcorn, pretzel bites, and soda, and Beth stood in the ticket line. She sent me deeper into the building to go look for a ticket taker so we could find out if we really needed to print the tickets (as an email she received indicated) or if the code on Beth’s phone could be scanned, but there was no one anywhere. It turned out we could have waltzed right into the theater with no tickets, and no one would have been the wiser.

But just to be safe, Beth did wait in the line (which stopped for a while when the machine broke down—and one of the two staff people did come over then to fix it). Unbeknownst to us, Beth’s aunt Susan was attending the same screening of the same film with several of her grandkids and great grandkids in tow, so when they arrived Beth bought tickets for them, too, so they wouldn’t have to wait as long in line. Susan said Beth was “an angel.” Anyway, we did pay to see Wicked, because we are law-abiding citizens. It was fun. I recommend it.

Back at Beth’s mom’s house, North made the filling for their pie and put it in the oven, we looked over the almost forty pictures from the park and narrowed it down to three finalists, and we had Chinese takeout for dinner and then watched A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and Mayflower Voyagers.

Thanksgiving Day

Beth and I returned to the house from our hotel around 9:20. The kids were still asleep, but her mom was watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade. Beth and I got started on the mushroom gravy and then I left her to finish it while I folded laundry in the living room while watching the parade.

Later that morning we went for a walk in a cemetery, not the one from the photo shoot, but another one. It’s a big graveyard with winding paths, tall trees, headstones, mausoleums, columns, and obelisks. I saw stones from as long ago as 1875 and as recent as this year. There are still grassy areas to fill in. I saw surnames I would not like to have (Boring) and ones I would (Seabright, not that I’d swap Lovelady for that, but it is an excellent name).

We discussed my ambivalence about what I’d like done with my body after my death. I’ve always liked graveyards, and I like the idea of loved ones visiting my grave or strangers walking by and exclaiming “What a great name” but the idea of my ashes being scattered at sea is also appealing. Of course, I said, Beth would probably rather be scattered at Blackwater. We could have our ashes mixed, she said, after we were both dead, and scattered in both places. It’s not a firm plan, but it’s a possibility. Take note, kids.

We’d been walking a while before Beth happened to mention her maternal grandparents had headstones in this cemetery, but she didn’t remember where. In a book or a movie, we would have stumbled across the graves, and I looked, but we didn’t. On the way home, we detoured to go walk to their two-story brick house. We also walked by Beth’s middle school (which was her mom’s high school back in the 60s) on the way there and from the edge of the cemetery you just barely could see the house where Beth lived during the first half or so of her childhood. I told her I liked knowing what memories I was walking by when I’m in Wheeling. We moved a lot when I was a kid, and though we’ve given our kids a childhood in one place, I have a hard time imagining what that would be like sometimes.

Back at the house we found North making caramel sauce for their apple pie, having finished the cranberry sauce. We had lunch, and Noah and I continued to read our vampire book, and Beth’s aunt Jenny came by for a visit, followed by her aunt Carole, who dropped off a pumpkin chiffon pie. We now had three kinds of pie, because Beth’s mom made a pecan pie the night before after we left for the hotel.

Beth, the kids, and I made our traditional Thanksgiving craft of turkeys made of apples, raisins, dried cranberries, green olives, and toothpicks. They grace our table every year as centerpieces, but this year Noah wanted to take them outside to photograph them. I went with him, and he asked me to arrange them to look “natural… like they’re in their habitat.” You can judge if I did a good job.

Later in the afternoon, North basted the tofurkey roast, Beth’s mom made mashed potatoes, Beth made stuffing, and Noah chopped the green beans, and I steamed them. Various people read and napped. I listened to “Alice’s Restaurant” and a playlist of songs about autumn, since it won’t be autumn for much longer.

Then we ate our feast (joined for pie later by Carole and her granddaughter Holly). Some years at Thanksgiving we go around the table and say what we are thankful for, but we don’t do it every year. I thought about it ahead of time and decided I would not initiate this activity because gratitude is currently a work in progress for me and I didn’t want to put others on the spot if anyone felt the same. I did want to have an answer, though, if asked, because I do want to be grateful. I think it’s important. Beth recently advised me not to let the incoming President take the joy out of my life and it is good advice.

At the table no one asked for examples of gratitude. Instead, Beth’s mom asked us to recount our most memorable Thanksgivings. She told us about the only year she didn’t spend in Wheeling, early in her marriage when she and Beth’s dad were living in Bluefield, WV, and the way she described it sounded a little lonely. I commiserated and mentioned how it strange it was to be in Spain the Thanksgiving I was twenty. My Thanksgiving dinner consisted of a sweet potato boiled on a hot plate in a dorm room. “That is sad,” she said.

Beth mentioned that she had a gallbladder attack, and we’ve had lice and covid on or very near Thanksgiving. Beth’s mom suggested we consider happier Thanksgivings and reminisced about the Thanksgiving Beth was one year old, and they had her birthday cake with Thanksgiving dinner. Beth said she’d be sure to tell her younger brother that their mother’s happiest Thanksgiving was before he was born. I put in that while we’d had many happy Thanksgivings with extended family on both sides, the first year we went to the beach for Thanksgiving was memorable because it was new.

But back to gratitude… If I am being honest, I have been very sad and disappointed and sometimes fearful since the election. It’s not irrational. My family includes a lesbian couple, one of whom works in the labor movement, a young adult who recently worked to elect Democratic political candidates, and another young adult who’s trans. While we are not the most endangered people—that would be immigrants—some or all of us could be in the crosshairs soon. There are some things that make me feel less terrible, though, and each one makes me grateful. Here are the ones that come to mind: