I read that about eight people eat around the average Thanksgiving dinner table, so I count it to my family’s credit that we have seventeen. I don’t know if that means we have a tighter bond or that we get married younger (my cousins certainly do – three of the four were happily married before college was out, though I and my own siblings remain conspicuously single.) But, regardless, it takes clearing the living room of furniture, adding another table at an askew angle, and some severe loss of elbow room to fit the entire family around one feast. But we managed alright. It was the least we could do, since there will be one less next year.

My grandfather has gotten old very quickly. He was a young man for a long time, and a middle-aged man much longer, but he is a very old man this Thanksgiving. I suppose a man gets tired after eighty years, but personally, I suspect the chemo. (more…)