Gone: An Absent Holiday

This was the first Thanksgiving without him. No awkward conversations, no blank stares. No endless conversations about nothing in particular. No music references on the end of his lips or trivia about some random movies. My sister casually washes the dishes after our meal as music fills the room, and my parents sit outside on the deck enjoying the warm weather. All of this seems like a normal Thanksgiving Day. But it’s really not normal without him.

Even with his crazy, flighty ideas and up and down mood swings and unpredictable ways, Thanksgiving would not be Thanksgiving without him, or at least so it seemed. When someone is gone, the world doesn’t stop moving. Everything is still moving forward all around. Cars passing on the highway, warm hearts leaping into grocery stores for last minute Christmas gifts on Black Friday. There is still life after we are gone.

The word “gone” itself is so much more than what we think it means. He’s not dead, but he is gone. Life has to go on. It’s hard to imagine not being around family during a time when I feel like we need family the most. There is so much uncertainty in the world right now. I heard a song yesterday by The Clash. This is a band that always reminds me of him. Whenever I hear the first hums of the guitar chords through the speakers, I can see him so clearly in my head. Whenever I hear The Beatles and John Lennon’s haunting voice, I think of my brother.

I can clearly remember Thanksgivings at granny's house. Me, my brother, and my sister running around in the yard. Me, my brother, and my sister eating PB&J sandwiches with granny’s homemade strawberry jam. Me, my brother, and sister. It’s always been the three of us. For as long as I can remember, on Christmas morning at about 4am, I would hear a whisper at my door. My sister would wake me up. We would run into my brother's room and pile on his bed, thinking about all the things Santa may have brought us this year for Christmas. Mom with her giant camera and all of us clunking down the stairs to the den to go open our presents. The smell of cinnamon buns and my dad’s coffee, (when he used to drink coffee) as we ran down the steps. There, underneath the brightly lit Christmas tree were our gifts.

They weren’t wrapped, but it made it easier for us and we, of course, didn’t mind. My sister screamed “Pretty Pretty Princess! What I always wanted!” with such excitement. I look puzzlingly at the gifts and the large object with a blanket over top of it as mom and dad say “Baby, go look at your presents. What did you get?” I’m only 2 or 3 years old at the time, so the most I am saying is “Big bird” and “Little Mermaid” and “teacups! Teacups!”, when I see the big bird flashlight, Little Mermaid slippers, and set of teacups propped against this other gift. What is underneath that blanket? My mom pulls the blanket off to reveal a little play kitchen, just for me. I am walking around it and my mom is filming me and I can tell that I was the center of attention, because I am so darn cute. This is what holidays used to be like for us. This is what a normal holiday was. Until now.

Coronavirus shattered any hope that all of our family would come over on Christmas day. Those were the most exciting times. When my brother, sister, and I were little, and all the family came over. The living room and kitchen and den were always full of people. Laughing and talking and laughing and talking some more. My younger self would always get excited because I couldn’t wait to see what gifts I would get from my aunts and uncles. When my grandparents were still around, we would also get gifts from them. We had to have been the luckiest kids on the block to have so many adults that cared about us and wanted to give us gifts on Christmas. This wasn’t even counting neighbors of course and mom and dad’s friends who also showered us with gifts on Christmas day. There was never a Christmas where we were short on gifts, that’s for sure. It wasn’t just about the gifts, though.

As we grew older, what became even more exciting were the family memories. My older cousin with his goofy grin doing something stupid to make us laugh as we circled around the dining room table to get our food. My uncle's laughter (with a few coughs here and there due to his smoking) filling the living room as my mom told him something funny. My aunts' high-pitched voices cascading down the stairs as they exchanged gifts with each other. These were the kinds of things that made Christmas truly special in our family. Somewhere along the line, we became lost. Holidays started becoming stressful and anxiety inducing situations for me time and again. The sadness of an emptiness inside me too large to ignore, too deep to forget. When family breaks your heart, it's so much more difficult. You don't have the option to never see that person again. My whole life has been that constant battle. Family estrangement, to me, is one of the worst types of pain anyone could ever feel. When my brother estranged himself from the family, he broke my heart, and I haven't been the same since, and I don't know if I ever will be...