Being Together

Lessons from an Awkward Thanksgiving Visit

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Just because you’re sitting next to people at the dinner table doesn’t mean you’re actually close to them. Take, for instance, my memory of the first time Joy and I shared Thanksgiving dinner with my father, his wife, and his in-laws from that marriage.

Joy and I had tied the knot three years earlier. We were living in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. She taught in a social services program at nearby Edgecomb Tech. I held a position on the North Carolina Wesleyan faculty.

We dutifully, if unenthusiastically, drove the five-and-a-half hours to tiny Louisville, Georgia. Louisville’s quiet Main Street offered no diversions from what we imagined would be an immersion experience in family dysfunction.

Thanksgiving arrived. Eight of us gathered around a six-person table jammed into one side of an already cramped living room. My father, his wife, her sister, her sister’s husband, their two adult children, Joy, and I sat with arms close to our sides. Elbows were nearly brushing elbows.

It’s entirely possible that somebody said the blessing. It felt more like somebody had fired a starting pistol. Individuals were grabbing serving dishes near them and standing to reach across the table for more distant dishes.

Each person was hurriedly plopping mashed potatoes, green beans, dressing, asparagus casserole, and turkey on their plates as quickly as they could. No one passed anything around the table. It was each person for himself or herself.