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Thanksgiving in the Midst of a Pandemic

This year was surely the most saddening Thanksgiving I've ever experienced.

Don't get me wrong, I am so grateful for my family, friends, significant other, and most importantly our health. But this year's Thanksgiving dinner was incredibly depressing. A month before Thanksgiving, my mom decided that she would host this year at our house. This meant that my grandma, grandpa, aunt, uncle, cousin, great-aunt, and 2 second-cousins would come to our house for our annual dinner with my mom, my dad, and me.

Everything changed suddenly when my grandfather, who has major health conditions, started feeling ill. Now, he generally feels ill all the time since he has problems with his heart and spends 100% of the year under a heated blanket. But he started to panic at the thought that it might be COVID. My mom consulted my dad and me to hear our thoughts on canceling Thanksgiving and insisting that everyone stay in their respective houses for the holiday. My dad stated that he was concerned about getting the virus, and I seconded his worry.

So we all stayed home.

I woke up to a very gray day on Thanksgiving, both figuratively and literally. The sky was so gray that I couldn't even convince myself to leave my bedroom until noon. But my mom attempted to make the day more fun by telling me to dress in some of my traditional regalia and braid my hair because she would be throwing in some Native traditions with our usual Thanksgiving traditions. So I did as she said, got all dressed up, and came downstairs. She had decorated our dining room with the four sacred medicines scattered on the table. We went outside before the meal and put tobacco down on the north side of one of our trees and said a prayer before returning inside to make our traditional cranberry maple rice.

But even that couldn't fix how disheartening it was not seeing our family.

It's selfish for me to wish that I could have seen them all in the midst of a pandemic. I would never want them to risk getting the virus just so we could pass around potato casserole and fall asleep on the couch. But I so desperately miss our traditions.
 
I miss helping my great-aunt prepare the meal at her home.
 
I miss seeing my cousins that I only see once or twice a year.
 
I miss watching football before our lunch.
 
I miss the prayer that my grandma always begs my mother to do before we begin filling our plates.
 
I miss being asked a thousand questions about my significant other.
 
I miss going through the Black Friday ads after our meal with all the women of my family and circling what I want for Christmas. 

I miss all the sarcasm and sass that comes with that!
 
But I think the thing I miss the most was picking up my dad's mom from her retirement community and bringing her to our Thanksgiving for my mom's side before she passed due to COVID in the spring.

Thanksgiving wasn't the same this year.

But I'm so hopeful that there will be another year like all of the ones before someday.

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