RIP AJM 1914-2006

As I mentioned last year, it's been a while since I celebrated Thanksgiving in the United States. I remember the last time, in 2000. I flew to PA from Boston for the long weekend, then flew back to Boston, went to my apartment for about an hour to unpack and repack, then headed back to the airport for a flight to Amsterdam for a job interview which eventually led to me moving abroad.

I think I may have gotten some of those details wrong, and I know that I'm fuzzy on the details of the Thanksgiving meal, but I know that things have changed since then. The house where we ate belonged to my grandparents then, and it belongs to my cousin and her husband now; instead of one child, they now have three, and two of my other cousins are married with kids too. And one figure whose absence will be felt at the table this year is my grandfather's--he died about two weeks ago. Grandpa had been in a nursing home for a few years, and in the past few weeks his health had been declining, so this was not a surprise, and after a long (92 years) and full life, this wasn't a tragic death. But it is a sad loss for our family.

My grandfather and my grandmother were both serving in the Navy when they met at a dance in July, 1943; they were married two months later. My mom and her three siblings remember their parents singing together, hosting fabulous cocktail parties in the 50s, leading family camping trips and swimming in the pond at the family farm. I remember him reading us stories as children, singing old songs, telling jokes or puns (or quoting quips such as this one from W.C. Fields: "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy!") and helping me learn to do a back handspring in the front yard--continuing a family acrobatic tradition. Of course, we have less rosy memories--Grandpa's temper, at times, was as quick and sharp as his wit--but mostly we remember the 63 years he spent married to my grandmother, their shared love of family, travel, playing bridge and of course, their daily cocktail hour, which they shared right up until he died.

Life, and family, is always evolving. This year we'll play with the four new great-grandchildren who have arrived since the last time I was home for this holiday. We'll probably reminisce a little about Thanksgivings and other times past, but mostly we move forward. But we hope to bring some of those happy memories with us to share with the next generations.