Giving in the Thanks

We traveled to Ohio this week for the familiar Thanksgiving traditions deeply rooted in my family tree.  Three generations sat around a table, and I am now considered one of the 'adults'.  With two children of my own, I suppose this is reasonable, but somehow I felt like I should still sit at the kids' table. 

Amy and I commented that we really wanted to sit in the corner and talk, that taking care of all these children really seemed like something 'the moms' should do. 

Oh, wait.  We are 'the moms.' 

And our moms are the grandmas, the beloved matriarchs with treasures in their purses and cookies in their cupboards.  The children played in all the rooms we once scattered, mimicking our childhod games and making up their own.

There is a deep knowing in my aunt's house.  Her sprawling rooms, her wooden floors, her shelved library, and her perpetual pots of fresh coffee.  I grew up here.  In this home, I am every age I have ever been. 

I have hunted for Easter eggs in the bushes, roasted marshmallows in the ravine, introduced Robb to his new in-laws-to-be.  I have been showered with wedding gifts and maternity clothes.  I have passed my newborn from one pair of hands to another as my far away family brought him up close.  This time, I learned the unwritten family technique for a homemade pie crust, in all its flaky goodness.

We have spent perhaps a decade of Thanksgivings apart, this family crew that now stretches to a list of nearly forty.  This week, they showered me with their memories, love, desserts, and laughter.  We are not as many as we were, not as many as we will be.

There is giving in the thanks, thanks in the giving.