A woman shares her experience of hosting Thanksgiving for the first time without her father, highlighting the unexpected waves of grief that can come with holidays.
I hosted Thanksgiving this year, just as I’d done for the past eight years. I made the giant turkey, mashed potatoes and all the traditional favorites. The dessert table — my dad’s favorite spot to sneak off to when no one was looking — was overflowing with decadent pies and sugary treats. I made enough food to feed an army — or in this case my big Italian family. My parents had seven of us in eight years and, over time, we’ve added spouses and 26 grandkids.
As usual, I kept myself busy cooking and chatting and refreshing drinks as people arrived. But then I passed by Dad’s seat at the head of the dinner table, and I immediately burst into tears. That’s the thing about grief. One minute you’re OK and the next — surprise! — you’re not. Thanksgiving was our first holiday celebration without Dad. He passed away at 92, so his death wasn’t unexpected, but it was still hard. Dad was the patriarch of our family — the nucleus — and we all revolved around him. My mother passed away from breast cancer when she was 56, so it was my dad who kept our family close and the traditions going. Every year, we’d take a family photo with Dad seated in the middle surrounded by all his kids and grandkids and great grandkids. It was such a beautiful tradition when he was with us, but I felt absolutely crushed when my brother wanted to do the photo again this year.“I don’t want to do the picture,” I protested. I was emotional. I didn’t want a photo without Dad in the middle where he’d always been. My brother said he understood, and he had a plan. “I'm going to make a collage of all the memorabilia with Dad and it's important for us to see the void when he's not in the picture because it makes you appreciate what we had,” he said. My brother was right. We were blessed to have so many years with our dad and so many great memories, and that was something we wanted to keep goin
Thanksgiving Grief Family Loss Traditions
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