Creating new holiday traditions

My husband’s family experienced a death in the family this fall. Needless to say, Thanksgiving is going to look a little different this year without my husband’s only sibling in attendance.

In fact, Bryan didn’t simply attend. He was not only a lively part of the conversation, but also acted as driver for my aging in-laws.

Bryan left behind no wife, no children. Our family unit tends to be tight when it comes to the holidays. And this year it’s even tighter.

With this unexpected change (he wasn’t even 60 when he died), I had to explain a few changes to our 12-year-old son.

When I approached this change, however, it was under the guise of my own childhood experience of Thanksgiving.

You see, my mom’s parents lived in assisted living, and Thanksgiving was a significant holiday in my mom’s hometown. The community churches would rotate the host for the annual Thanksgiving day meal. We would pile my parents and us four kids into the conversion van and hit the road. We would pick up my grandparents and make our way to whichever church was that year’s host.

It was not only an opportunity for my grandparents to reconnect with friends and community members, my mom tells me she enjoyed seeing her friends’ parents and catching up on the local news.

This year, instead of my own house overflowing with my nieces and nephews, we are packing our own little family into our car and making the drive to Kansas City, where we will pick up my mother-in-law and go eat dinner at my father-in-law’s independent living center.

The gathering will certainly be different for our son. It will lack the chorus of cousins, but we will focus on the gift and presence of celebrating a holiday with my husband’s family. We will celebrate and honor the memory of his brother, Bryan, and we will focus on making new memories, no matter where we celebrate.

From my family to yours, Happy Thanksgiving. Karen Bonar Publisher