Giving thanks for imperfections
Around 1967, it was Aunt Rita’s turn to host the family Thanksgiving in her orange-shingled home in Hicksville, Long Island. Aunt Mildred, Aunt Rita and my mother, Nurse Vivian, rotated who hosted the holidays in an arcane manner. This much I knew: Christmas was the big event, and no one wanted to cook on Easter Sunday.
Grand-Aunt Bea was the matriarch. Right after the turkey went into the oven, she poured her first scotch. Her contribution to the feast was invariably Heavenly Hash, a mixture of fruit salad, walnuts, Jell-O and marshmallows, held together with Cool Whip.
She also brought the good crystal. Galway, not Waterford, but it was the one high-class thing in our family.
The boy cousins played football on Cambridge Drive; the uncles watched bowl games at the downstairs bar, and that left Cousin Janey and me to fold the napkins and set the table. Aunt Bea knew I was the only cousin clumsier than Janey, and so she told her to put out the wineglasses. Janey picked up the tray, took two steps, then dropped the family heirlooms down the basement staircase.
You’d think there would be more fuss, but no, the aunts made quick work of the cleaning, found Welch’s jelly glasses for the cider and calmed Janey down. Aunt Rita sighed: “It’s only glasses. No one got killed. And one thing’s for sure: Neither you nor Kevin will be carving the turkey.”
In the holiday movie “It’s a Wonderful Life,” there’s a scene near the end where the hero, George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart), runs through the town shouting “Merry Christmas!” then rushes into the house, sees his children at the top of the stairs, and just before he hugs them, he kisses a newel cap. That’s the little knob on the top of the post at the bottom of the staircase balustrade. In the Bailey home, that knob kept coming off.
Took me a while to understand. He’s got a beautiful wife (Donna Reed), reasonably wellbehaved children, and a town that loves him. But he stops and takes time to kiss an object he knows will always be broken. He embraced the imperfect life he had, instead of the perfect life he wanted.
Gratitude is not for what we hope; gratitude is for what we have.
My husband’s car got rear-ended in August. Took two months to get the parts to repair a 10year-old Prius, but finally
At the Bedlam Blue Bungalow ... the hot water faucet started dripping. The doorbell stopped ringing. The stove’s ignition went on strike. Tiles leaped off the wall in the bathroom.
in October, it was ready. The next week, while driving down Highway 101 to pick up Aidan at Compass High, the Prius ran over some metal debris on the highway, ripping open the undercarriage.
Reduced again to a one-car family, we drove the Kipcap to the Antiques Faire in Alameda, and while we waded through comic books and vintage jewelry, someone smashed that car’s rear quarter-panel and drove off.
In the meantime, back at the Bedlam Blue Bungalow in the Outer, Outer, Outer, Outer Excelsior, the hot water faucet started dripping. The doorbell stopped ringing. The stove’s ignition went on strike. Tiles leaped off the wall in the bathroom.
A philosophical repairman said: “Be glad that all this bad luck is happening to objects. Accidents happen. Better that karma crack your windshield then your soul.”
Not that we humans have escaped all the cracks. Not all of them are mentioned in this column, but, among other things recently: one of us broke a foot, one of us got bullied and had to switch high schools, one of us lost a toe. Parts of us will never get fixed.
But as we sit down this Thursday, we will be grateful for the broken things.
We are indebted to the scratches on the kitchen cabinet because they remind us that our boys may act out, but they always come home. We are blessed that the St. Jude statue in the china cabinet has a broken nose, because it reminds us that even saints have a history. We are thankful that some of the 20 dishes on our table are chipped, but there are enough plates for the sons and aunts and uncles who have chosen us as family.
Gratitude is not for what we expect. It’s for what others can expect of us. Deep in my heart I love the fact that Aidan likes my pumpkin pie and expects me to bake it.
We don’t own a newel cap to kiss. Maybe I should kiss the busted doorbell, to recognize that indeed, this is a wonderful life. And for that we are grateful.