The only year since I moved to the US that I spent Thanksgiving with my family was when my grandmother collapsed and was rushed to the hospital and had an emergency operation because of a perforated stomach that she didn’t even know she had. She had been bleeding internally for who knows how long, thinking she just had a bit of constipation causing the abdominal pain. She had bled out so much, her insides in such rough shape, that they couldn’t finish the surgery, couldn’t sew her up, and instead “packed” her up and hoped she would hold on and heal.

I flew home, grateful for my dad’s status as a former Air Canada employee so I could use one of his passes, thinking that I was going to be saying goodbye to her. We were newly married, and had just seen her a few short weeks prior at our planned wedding reception for our Quebec-based friends and family. We waited that long so that my brother, who was currently working in the BVI, could be there because of hurricane season. So while we were married in a small ceremony at the end of July, we had our reception at the end of October. I had had only one request, that the reception be held at the Lachine Curling Club, a place near and dead to my grandfather’s heart, where he had literally built the bar, re-done all the plumbing, and other odds and ends. While in his 70s. I had just seen her and my grandfather and our extended family, my cousins, most of my oldest and dearest friends.

And now a few short weeks later, I was back, over the American Thanksgiving holiday, holding her hand in the hospital while she was unconscious, cut open, and attached to more tubes and wires that I could count. She almost always hosted Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner at her house, Canadian Thanksgiving that is, which happens in mid-October because while I can still be growing tomatoes on my porch in late November, they are getting 4 feet of snow. We would bring the dining room table upstairs and put it in the living room so everyone could fit around the table, and we would feast. It was my grandmother who also always would comment on the amount I was eating, if I really wanted seconds. I cried one year when I came home from university, having put on the requisite freshman 15, longing to be able to go and eat turkey with family, but also dreading the comments she would lodge about my weight, the portions I was serving myself, the amount of desert I consumed.

That was the only time I ever went home and will probably ever go home over Thanksgiving. In Canada, it is just another day in November where you happen to also be able to watch NFL football on a Thursday afternoon. We didn’t go back to Canada that year over Christmas, either, having spent all of our disposable income on the wedding trip and the impromptu trip over Thanksgiving. We celebrated Christmas by going to the beach, a treat that two northerners enjoyed more than anything. It was a somber Christmas back home, with my grandmother still alive but still in the hospital, still in intensive care. She never got out of the hospital, passing away peacefully overnight one day in March, just in time for me to go home for the funeral over Spring Break.

We have always celebrated Thanksgiving here in the States with just our small family, with maybe one or two friends who either can’t or don’t want to go home, or a fellow Canadian for whom going home is actually an inconvenience for everyone you are trying to visit. This year is no exception, where we are spending the holidays with our friend who is basically family and also in our bubble. We have actually spent a number of Thanksgiving over the years, first in Kentucky, and now in the DMV. With family all so far away, the kids see him as an uncle-type figure, one of many that the kids have, given that we live in a different country than our immediate and even extended family.

This year, as much as any year, and maybe even more so, I have so much to be thankful and grateful for. We have our health. We have our jobs. My kids are doing wonderfully in school, given the circumstances, and they are at an age where even if they weren’t thriving, it wouldn’t really matter. Work has been tremendously busy and stressful, but I have thrived in that space, as well. My daughter at 13 is more self-possessed and self-assured than I think I was until I was well into my 30s. She has this diverse, supportive group of friends whom she has met online, taking after me, apparently, and they are her lifeline, something every 13yo needs, regardless of if there is a pandemic or not. She is up on pointe, she is swimming and has great friends there. My son has been playing video games non-stop with his friends, friends from all over space and time given how much we’ve moved. But I also hear him “in class” leading his reading group’s discussions, leading his PBL team. One of my son’s best friends has temporarily re-located to another state, and when his friend landed, my son requested that he call so that my son would know he made it ok. His friend did, and while the conversation quickly turned back to whatever video game they were trying to defeat, my heart swelled. Both my kids still want to talk to me, even if it is only in the car to and from swim team or ballet.

I am proud of the work I’ve done, writing about staff issues, affective labor, ADHD, mental health. I know that my writing has reached many, helped some, too, and ultimately, that’s what you want to see happen, but often it doesn’t, or we don’t get to see it, but people have been reaching out to thank me, and I am grateful for that, grateful that I have words, that I have a platform, that I have an audience who appreciates and likes what I have to say.

I have witnesses so much grief and loss this year, as with any year, but made more acute because of the pandemic: people losing loved ones, relationships deteriorating, failures, losses, disappointments. I am partially on-edge because the losses have not yet touched me directly, and I am not so naive to think that they never will. I helplessly witnessed one of my daughter’s friendships deteriorate over (among other things), religion, but also how she recovered and moved on. I have seen so many deal with bitter disappointment at everything we can’t do: graduating seniors losing all that comes with that, as well as all that comes with being a freshman in college, socially distant swim team practice when all these kids want to do is hug each other. Most have been good about it, but I know how these losses feel, even if they are small, they feel big to these kids, as all things do at that age.

I got a new (to me) car and it literally died after it being in my possession slightly over a month. It was an issue they wouldn’t have seen when inspecting it before selling it to us because it was literally in the engine and if I had wanted to spend a couple of grand to fix a car, I would have done it on my old one, because at least it was paid for, but that’s the worst thing that has happened to us during 2020, and while there is still time, I’m thinking I am grateful that we are getting out of this year relatively unscathed.

More than ever this Thanksgiving, I wish I could see and hug my friends, for my kids to be able to see and hug their friends. I wish we could go and see a movie in a theater as a family. I wish I could have date night. I wish…

There are so many things that I miss, so many things and people and times and events that I miss, that we all miss. But Thanksgiving…I’m not going to focus on what I am missing right now, because I’m not missing anything, not for this holiday, at least. Instead, I am going to think of how much love I have and have received this year.

To you, my friends, I am grateful. I am here because of you. I feel more connected that ever, even though distant and disconnected, I realize just how important these connections are to me. I say this every year, but this year, especially, thank-you. I am smarter, better, wiser, more patient, more confident, more ready to fight, more give-no-fucks because of you all.

Thanksgiving will quickly turn into Christmas and the holidays which will then mean New Year’s and 2020 will be over. For all of those who didn’t make it, we grieve. For all those of us who did, may we carry 2020 in our hearts to be and do better.

I think of Nanny, my grandmother, every year on Thanksgiving. I got to say goodbye to her, and for that, I am also grateful. I carry her memory with me, hear her voice, for better and worse, and work to do better by her, because of her, for her.