Thanksgiving Day.
While many of you sat around a table with family members on November 23rd, Ed and I tried something different.
It was 92 degrees in Tucson that day. We sat at one of about a dozen tables temporarily set up in the interior courtyard of a large apartment complex that houses immigrants from around the world. The stately palo verdes and the lavish ocotillos surrounding the tables still proudly displayed their leaves because summer had not yet ended.
It was a truly global potluck. Samosas from Bhutan. Kak’ik from Guatemala. Tamales from Mexico. Zahraa al sofi fatayer from Iraq. And more. And pumpkin pies, of course.
We sat with six other people at our table. Several women and children from the Congo wore orange, green and pink tunics that glowed almost fluorescent against their smooth black skin. The tall man seated across from us, graying hair swept back from his forehead, wore a long-sleeved blue shirt, the top two buttons left open to reveal an American-style T-shirt. His wide smile couldn’t hide deep pools of pain that seemed to lurk behind dark, intense eyes. He’d come from Afghanistan, he said in broken English. But not directly. To escape, he had traveled through Pakistan, spent four years in Kenya, and had now been in the States for eleven months, working on an assembly line and waiting for papers to get a “better job.”
“Do you have a family back in Afghanistan?” I asked.
He nodded, his eyes turning an even darker shade of black.
“Wife and children?”
Again he nodded.
“How many children do you have?”
Very slowly, he turned and pointed toward each one of us around the table and counted, “Von, Toa…”
“We are your children?” I asked.
“Heh,” he said, breaking into a smile.
My heart did one of those little flips. The kind of flip it did the first time I looked into the eyes of my newborn grandson. The kind of flip it does when Ed looks at me in that way that reaches deep down into my soul.
This holiday season, I hope you’re fortunate enough to be with family that causes your heart to do that little flip.
Are you?
I have a good thing going this holiday season. First, to be with my loving wife and extraordinary partner. Second, to be with my two favorite, loving, and super fun grandsons for several days before New Years. And third, to deliver food on Christmas day to shut-ins (and very grateful) people for the Salvation Army.
What will light up your lives during this Holiday Season? Are there other things that you will do out of obligation rather than because they make your heart sing?
Holidays create a strange paradox for me … everything seems to be in autopilot; in the good hands of my loving wife and sister-in-law. They plan, decorate, buy, prepare, cook, and direct everyone and everything in their desire to have us enjoy the best that holidays can offer. My job is to keep out of their way … and, of course, to enjoy the meal, the comraderie and family. AND, I do … and I often wish for more. Your story says to me that, like the man who found family in strangers, I should choose more – not so much in what I do but in how I receive the loving offering that my ladies create for us. Life is so much better when we choose a frame that expresses the deep positives that I know are true rather than the surface negatives that are sometimes hard to put aside. Perhaps then, my heart would flip more often. I’m still learning!
LP. thanks for that. I think many of us can relate very well to what you’re saying!
I’m still learning, too, and I’m grateful to have such great learning partners.
Both family and strangers can challenge us or help us confirm our understanding of a shared humanity (the light in me acknowledges the light in you). We most often look to our family to strengthen this understanding within ourselves, but can also find that family members can push us away and build more of a sense of separation. I have found in my own life that it is very often the stranger that helps me most realize a sense of oneness and joy in our shared humanity. Trying to search out to these encounters, however, is not part of my personality though because I am afraid to open myself to the unknown. When I do manage to overcome fear and do it, they have been some of the most memorable and joyful experiences I have had. Thank you Marlena for helping me see this again and to work on being more open to the possibilities that letting go of fear brings to my life.
Dawn, thank you so much for this! Searching out those true and real encounters seems to require vulnerability. So hard. So important. It’s a continuous challenge in my life.