We ate at three o'clock in the afternoon, so that might tell you something...

It was delicious, though. The turkey was beautifully cooked, there was tons of dressing, mashed potatoes, green bean cassarole and squash cassarole. (I passed on the last two, despite the fried onion topping, being a pronounced anti-vegetarian, and like a little kid about green and yellow vegetables.)

We had key lime pie, five hours later...we were too full before that.

By the way...trivia about Al: I looooove dark meat.

In the background, I kept the TV on so I could listen and keep track of...

A football game?

Are you kidding?

Me?

I had been watching BUCKAROO BANZAI on the Sci-Fi channel. Don't tell me you're shocked---campily acted, a combination physicist/racer/rock star/surgeon, a takeoff of Doc Savage as interpreted by an Adam Ant lookalike....what's not to love? Homages to all the awful sf movies of my youth, from Godzilla movies to Invasion of the Body Snatchers...

Keep your football games. I would rather watch BUCKAROO. It's too bad they never made the sequel...

Anyway, the dinner was a great success, I went to the back bedroom to watch the end of the movie and then channelsurfed. Barb came back there for a few minutes, and laid down next to me--- and we both cried for a few minutes.

We didn't have to say a thing. Any words would have cheapened it.

It's still a void to have a Thanksgiving meal without Jamie there.

Last year Jamie died the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

That's why it's a Thanksgiving ....in blue. It's not depressing, per se. It was quite wonderful in some ways....

Yet this of all holidays will be most tinged by Jamie's absence. For all time, I think. Till tomorrows count themselves into the billions, I think.

Things to be thankful for?

Who I have left.

There was some...unpleasantness...by some relatives...after Jamie's death. You would be amazed how, at a time when you think the cruelest people you know would be the kindest---a few people will pick that time to say the cruelest things possible, things you wouldn't expect from your worst enemy--- when we needed their support most. (I'm deliberately not going into it, as I've done for a year. It makes me too mad....nor would I put it past them to try to sue me, simply for telling the truth.) We have not spoken to them since, and they have not--- successfully, anyway--- forced themselves on us, either. Is that being unforgiving? I hope not...but some things we really can't face right now.

I've never had a kid who seriously lied to me----of course, two of them couldn't, but so far Brian hasn't deceived me in anything but minor things....of course,he's always made good grades, so it's easy. The first time he drives and puts a dent in the car--- then we'll see what happens.

We'll be going to San Diego Christmas Day, and staying about a week, with my brother, his family, and my mother. I'm not sure what will happen to the journal then---whether I'll post from there (my brother does have a computer) or whether I'll go into hiatus for a week. Depends on what I have the time for, I guess...

The main thing I'm thankful for this Thanksgiving?

A little perspective.

The Pilgrims who we are supposedly celebrating, or rather honoring a tradition of theirs, had just gotten through a miserable year when many died, including children. Most of the Pilgrim parents knew the sorrow of burying a child of theirs.

The Indians, of course, with the medicine they had, knew the same kind of figures for infant mortality, and even for those who were as old as Jamie, as old as sixteen.

During most of mankind's existence, most parents could count on burying at least one, and sometimes several, of their children. It's only the last few generations---in much of the Westernized world, anyway---that having a child die on you was the exception---not the rule.

The vast majority of Pilgrims would have envied me---for only losing one child, rather than several of them. They went through this pain several times.

Don't you dare say they got used to it. Don't you dare say they expected it. Some things---you cannot get used to.

The fact that it now rarely happens---that for most of you, your child is safe---is certainly something to be thankful for.