Thanksgiving - The Forgotten Holiday

 

A big bird, family and football, not necessarily in that order, that’s what Thanksgiving means to most Americans. We debate different styles of cranberry sauce, bemoan the way the Christmas shopping season begins earlier every year and celebrate new births and family accomplishments. And we solemnly swear that the day’s calories don’t really count. 

Things are different with my family. I reach for the flowers, and let myself remember loosing Craig Houston Jr. My nephew. Long ago someone taught me to preserve flowers by hanging them upside down to dry. That way the petals stay connected. I can’t be happy about Thanksgiving Day. But I never want to forget the six-foot gentle giant everyone called Little Man.

 

He would have been fourty this year.  Craig Junior was a parent’s dream. Little Man was actually a big bear of a man, just as he had been a big cub of a boy. At 6 foot 6 inches, he was only two inches shorter, and a few pounds lighter than his father, Craig Sr. Smart and kind. Too big for anyone to pick on and too jolly for anyone to fear.  And patient enough to babysit my rambunctious child.

He was the guy people called on when they needed help with their car or a kid’s broken toy. He always grinned and waved you away when you tried to pay him. After graduating high school he decided against college and struck out on his own. Then in 2001 he chose to return to school and became a twenty-one-year-old college freshman. We were all so proud. Until Thanksgiving Day, 2002. Family gathered close. Little Man wanted to have his new girlfriend close, too.

That’s how the argument began. Craig Sr. didn’t want some stranger his son had only known a few weeks at his table. An old-fashioned issue that should have been nothing but escalated into some Shakespearian tragedy. So, on Thankgiving Day, 2002, the passion of youth sent Little Man tearing out of his home, away from his father. That fury probably left both their blood-pressures soaring. It also made him forget the one thing he always carried with him.  

As strong and lively as he was, Little Man dealth with asthma his entire life.  He never left home without his medication. But this time, the family argument made his rush off without it. The argument likely also set the seeds for the attack that hit him later that evening while he spent the holiday with his girlfriend. Family and close friends knew what to do if he suffered an attack. But this girl and her family were unprepared when he collapsed.

That probably made no difference, according to the ambulance crew who brought Craig to the hospital where he was pronounced dead. The massive asthma attack completely closed Craig’s airway and he died quickly. The news did not help his mother, my sister. She literally aged twenty years in as many minutes, until she looked more like my mother's twin. 

 

My sister has recovered, at least outwardly. Time doesn’t really heal all wounds, but the sharp pain has faded into a dull ache over the years.  Last year her oldest grandaughter graduaed from college, she had to be happy about that.  Still, my sister cannot spend Thanksgiving week anywhere near home. We vanishes for a week or so. We all know and understand and wait for her return.

 
Once she is back, we have our own celebration. We pull out pictures and remember all the lives Little Man touched and everything he accomplished in his life. We handle the flowers from his memorial service, flowers so carefully preserved they may last longer than we do. And I remember to cherish the people in my family, because you just never know…