The Consummation of a Tradition : Tradition Meets Fruition

It's November again. Another Autumn rolls through me like the cool breeze it brings.  I become focused on family, as many do, and let the warmth of hot cider flow over me.  It's that time of year, the time where we all  begin to think about our families, our friends and our lives.

We're a week away from the most pleasant day on the calendar.  Every body is a 'yes-man'.  Excuse me flows out of mouths like it's air, and we all practice the many different ways we'll be saying thank you. There's an attitude of compassion that supersedes any other day.  Children are cuter, people are funnier and turkey never tastes better.

This Thanksgiving brings about it a new consequence of time to my attention.  A new realization that won't be so pleasantly welcome.  I know as much as anyone, that all good things will come to an end.  I know that in time there will be difficulties and frailties that will captivate my heart, turning it into some fatigued ball.  I feel it happening again this Thanksgiving.

This will be my first Thanksgiving with out the most unbelievably funny, kind-hearted and humble man I have ever known to exist. The diehard Red Wings fan that never let anything get in the way of a quick nap. I'm talking about my Grandfather, Charles "Pop-Pop" Kittredge. A constant fixture in my Thanksgiving scheduling. 

Just about every other year my family would make a trip through the Smokey Mountains and into the foothills of good ol' Greenville, South Carolina.  That's my home.  That's where I was born.  They have Taco Casa people! I don't even eat Mexican food, but if you had their cinnamon chips you would understand.  Inevitably my Dad and I would attend the Turkey Bowl game at BJU (it's soccer so don't try to understand), where with out fail my Dad would run into a million people singing is Turkey Bowl praise. And as much as I love watching soccer with unfamiliar friends and a brother or two, there was nothing like the dinner with Graig and Sarah's family, Pop-Pop and Ginny and Steve and Laura.  There are more arguments and laughs at this dinner than any other: Easter being a close second.

The one memory I keep revisiting is the last Thanksgiving I spent down in South Carolina with my family.  After secluding ourselves to a table, my younger brothers and I began to think of ways that we were going to cut through the awkwardness that was our extended family.  There was a glimpse of hope though.  I had a brought soccer ball and I was pretty sure that off in the distance there lay a shining oval shaped something that I could only pray was a football.  Alex and I were on the same page, and Andrew lay there like a slug: it was his only defense.  We begin to kick the ball around when my cousin Clint came out and wanted the play catch.  Not too long after that came Andrew and Pop-Pop.  We played keep away and catch for about an hour, if not longer.  Pop-Pop throwing frozen ropes that left blood-colored ball marks in our hands. There was no great words or loving hugs, just goofy blonde guys looking like the barely athletic footballers we are.  This is what I will miss the most.  The normal, 'could happen at anytime' moments that in my mind seemed so perfect.. 

At the end of the day, when I'm done whining and complaining, there will be some traditions that are withheld (no matter if I want to or not): time will accomplished another minute's life-force, and I will still be thankful this Thanksgiving.  When met with the painful truths that life brings me, it is all too easy to brush them aside with the joy of memories I could only be so lucky to have experienced.  I truly can be nothing less than thankful, and gladly accept it into my heart.