On this Thanksgiving, this day of joy and thanks living, we are sprawled around the home bearing the scars of our growing up and full to bursting with our memories.
I have two sisters. (And a brother, but I’ve already told you about him.)
We are sowed over the space of four years and we carry the same notes of DNA all written in a slightly different tune, the each of us.
Between us, there are eleven babies scattered across fourteen years and three states. We are in the thick of it now, solidly middle aged, and our threads bear the weight of a life lived together, and then picked apart a little, or in some cases, a lot.
It’s been a hard knock decade for a few of us and aren’t we all the wounded and the wounding?
I’m fearful now and then of the jagged edges of hard days poking through our bones and their tendency to knife through fragile connections but we bear the story of a life together, our story, whose continuity and redemption I care desperately for.
A repair is painstaking, methodical work, all needle pricks and sore thumbs and no fabric ever lies quite the same after a reworking, but there are new threads and new stories to be told.
We fold ourselves into the dining room, arms and limbs akimbo in this space not meant for eighteen souls, but we sure do make it work. And slap in the middle of the laughter, and the inevitable chaos, is the steady in and out of stitching, smoothing new memories over old bones.
Redemption is messy and glorious and so hard and this day it is what I am thankful for. And oh how I love these women, my sisters, who carry this tune with me. And our song – it’s broken notes and broken hearts sometimes, and never pitch perfect and often it’s failure, but it’s always grace.
Happy Thanksgiving. Happy thanks living.
~M.