Thanksgiving Reflections

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