Thanksgiving Reflections
Throughout
my childhood, Thanksgiving was normally spent at Grandma’s house. She would cook the turkey and we all would
bring different side dishes. She lived in a somewhat sizeable house between the
Washington Park and West Salem communities – it was really the old family home.
The family had moved there during the depression when my mother was four years
old and had remained there for forty years. Ah, there were memories in every
nook and cranny, but on those Thanksgivings the memories slept through the
noise and confusion that resulted from so many people in one place and we
created new ones. Yes, we were together and that’s all that mattered. Then slowly our ranks began to dwindle –
Grandpa went to Heaven in 1976. The last
Thanksgiving was celebrated there in 1978, because it was to become obvious
that Grandma could no longer live alone; she moved in with my aunt – her oldest
daughter. Then in early 1980, Grandma joined Grandpa in Heaven. Our Thanksgiving celebrations continued at
various locations. Since Grandma had a family of ten children, we usually had a
crowd; however, not everyone made it home every year. It was great fun snapping
pictures by family units, by groups of siblings – and oh the food and
fellowship with one another. Then our
ranks began to dwindle in the 1990’s as first one and then another stepped into
eternity, and yet our seasonal gatherings focused on the joy of family and
provisions of our God. We lost an aunt
-- an uncle – a cousin in the early 1990’s. Thanksgiving 2000 is forever
engraved on my heart and mind. After battling heart disease and being oxygen-dependent
for the better part of three years, she began
to fail in a real way. Added to her
other issues were frequent nose bleeds that often resulted in emergency trips
to the hospital. It happened again on
this Thanksgiving Day, and we were in the ER hoping it could be stopped. It was
, but this was Mom’s last family Thanksgiving – her next was spent in the
unbridled praise of Heaven. It seemed that a succession of sisters followed her
in subsequent years. Other family
members have also followed – sometimes it’s difficult not to contemplate, “who
will be missing next year?” Yet, that’s
foreign to spiritual thinking and a mindset of true thanksgiving. We will meet again this year and perhaps give
thought to those who’ve gone before. We will share … we will laugh…we will bear
one another’s burdens. That’s a real
Alspaugh family Thanksgiving. Perhaps our family theme verse for the season
should be Romans 11:38, “For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory forever. Amen” (KJV). We praise God for His bountiful blessing and
we look to Him for sustenance in the future … because we are Alspaughs and that’s
who we are
