The Best Thanksgiving Ever
A look back at Thanksgiving 30 years ago.
I had hoped I wouldn’t been in the hospital on this day.
It was Thanksgiving 1996 and I was in a hospital room in Minneapolis healing up from a severe case of pneumonia. Before I entered the hospital the week before Thanksgiving, I had been laid up in my apartment for over a week unable to keep anything in my stomach and finding it hard to breathe. After a week of this misery, I went to see my clinic on the other side of town. My nurse practitioner realized that I needed to get to the hospital stat because my white blood cell count showed I was fighting a major infection. My lungs were filled with fluid.
In the days after being admitted, I was placed on antibiotics and doctors placed tubes in my chest to drain the fluid from the lungs. Those first few days were risky. I found out later that if the drug and the draining of the fluid didn’t take, I might need surgery or else I might not make it. By Thanksgiving Day I was feeling much, much better- but not good enough to go home.
Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday because of the time spent with family and of course the food. By Thanksgiving, I was able to eat solid food again, which was a blessing after not being able to eat anything for over a week. But I wasn’t looking forward to hospital food on this day. But, I wasn’t going to be able to go home, so all I could do was try to make the best of it.
I sat back and tried to watch the football game and just wait for lunch. I think at some level I was just thankful that I was still alive and could eat.
To my surprise, I saw my Mom and Dad enter the room. They had traveled from Michigan to take care of me and were staying at my apartment while I was in the hospital. Seeing my parents visit me was not a surprise since they saw me every day while I was in the hospital. What was surprising was that my mother had made Thanksgiving dinner for me. She made turkey, with cornbread dressing, sweet potatoes, and collard greens. I was floored. She didn’t have to make this, especially just for me, but she did. My parents even brought Vernors Ginger Ale, the Michigan-made drink that’s the only ginger ale for me.
But it wasn’t simply the food that was cooked, it was the time with my parents as well as my uncle’s family who lived in Minneapolis. I got my Thanksgiving holiday of good food and fellowship, it just wasn’t in the way I expected.
Thanksgiving is a day to give thanks and yes, that can seem rather trite to say on a day like this. But knowing that had been incredibly sick and could have died, I really was thankful for my life. I was thankful for good food, but I was even more thankful for a mother who took the time to make a meal for me.
Thanksgiving 2024 is a milestone holiday for me since it will be the first one without my parents. My Dad died in 2015 and my mother died this year in February. While I am sad to not spend time with them, I am thankful to have had my parents in my life and for giving me the best Thanksgiving I ever had.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.