Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the frantic holiday season for the Barbers just like for many others. In particular, for us it marks a pilgrimage to my in-laws' house in North Carolina. Wednesday morning we left Texas at 4 AM, bound for Birmingham where we picked up Andrew on break from college, then pushed immediately on. With a few stops-the typical Cracker Barrel stop and several rest area pit stops to climb out of the car and stretch cramped limbs-we arrived in Charlotte around midnight. I felt rather like a clown in the circus when we unloaded the car. Since we made the trip in my 2-door Eclipse, we were jammed in with luggage, gear, Sarah's pillow and comforter that is her traveling comfort must, and food we packed for the trip to ensure less stops and less expenses. I doubt I could have gotten much more than a 3X5 index card added to the load, and we were wedged in like anchovies in a tin.
This was a tumultuous year for Stacey's dad. Going in to his doctor's office with cardiac concerns, he ultimately ended up spending several months in Duke University Hospital, teetering on the edge of death through multiple heart surgeries and infections. Since he spent so long in the hospital, his wife exhausted her paid vacation benefits and so I went to North Carolina and spent the last several weeks of his convalescence in the hospital with him so that she could return to work. I did little more than sit day after day in the room with him, occasionally walking with him through the corridors or fetching for him from the nurses ice cream to mix with the Ensure they had him taking after every meal, and watching him stubbornly refuse to give up, to fight to get back to his feet and to live life again. So I enjoyed seeing him busy in the kitchen again, astonished at his regained vigor and tenacity.
Thanksgiving in Charlotte is a busy and chaotic time. Too many people jammed in the house. Pull-out sofas, extra pillows and blankets everywhere are the order of the day. Stacey's sister Amy and her husband Adam have their two young children in tow, and this usually means toys pulled out and littered over the floor everywhere. Coffee is consumed at a furious rate, dishes pile up in the sink with a remarkable speed, the door slams with comings and goings to the store for last-minute items, for long walks around the neighborhood. Stacey's dad and stepmom keep up a spirited debate in the kitchen. More coffee, more snacking, kids getting their feelings hurt with each other, old stories aired out for one more telling. By the time Thanksgiving dinner is over with, too many calories and too much conversation and too much ado about nothing results in a stupefaction which extends to the next day, during which we generally do nothing more taxing than a long walk down to the park and back, and the traditional kickoff of the Christmas viewing season with their timeworn copy-VHS, even!-of National Lampoon's Christmas vacation.
And we enjoy Thanksgiving so much we consider the time well-spent to travel for two entire days coming and going the 1100 miles each way. Not only is this our yearly visit with Stacey's parents, but this is one of my favorite times as well. I was fortunate enough to marry into a family in which I was quickly accepted. I have friends who are standoffish and distant with spouses' families, and this to me would be a depressing and lonely matter. I have been related to her family for around 25 years, and I feel about as much a part of their family as I do mine. I was especially close to her grandmother Peggy, and many times would take the kids down to her house in Clanton to visit with her even if Stacey were not able to go while she was finishing up her degree at UAB. Stacey's sister Amy is brilliant, goofy, unabashed, and just plain fun to be around, a lot like my brothers are.
I have so much family that is important to me that it little matters to me whether they are mine through blood or marriage. Very special to me is my Grandmother Burdette, who is the mother of my stepfather who died in the 1980's. Grandmother has inspired me with her deep and loving faith, for showing me that loving God leads to loving other people, not in condemning or judging them. Many a Christmas or Thanksgiving I spent at her house would include a far-flung relative, friend, or acquaintance who was invited in to the holiday table as a matter of course to share love and joy among us. From her opening her home and her heart to anyone who needed companionship and community I learned what it means to be in fellowship with the rest of the world. I can draw a direct line between the dinner table at her house and the communion rail at which I kneel on Sundays in fellowship with others both present and absent, in the knowledge that we are all in this together.
My family is one which kids, plays, argues, drinks, tells the same stupid old jokes and stories, gossips, ridicules, berates, harangues, and laughs. Probably a lot like your family, I bet. Whether born into relationship with each other, or choosing to associate together through marriage or inclination, we belong to each other. The holidays may heap stress on us through travel, chaos, noise, and rubbing elbows in too close a proximity, but it also reveals the generosity of shared memory, a time when we can clear the plates from the table and sit down with a glass of wine or cup of coffee over dessert and ask of each other "So, do you remember the time when we...?" A time to revisit old stories and make new ones, to remember exactly why we turn to each other in need for assistance.
In short, home is where my family is. And, as Robert Frost says:
"Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
They have to take you in."
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