No thanks required, but…
Two days before Thanksgiving, I drove to Eureka Market to purchase ingredients for a “Thanksgrieving” meal at my home: a gathering of widows and widowers who had no family celebrations to attend. I’d promised there’d be no turkey, no marshmallow covered sweet potatoes, and nobody would be required to express “thanks” for anything.
When I got back from the store, I discovered my toilet wouldn’t flush. Nothing terribly new. It had been suffering for a week or so. I’d deal with it later. I’m pretty handy and its mechanics are fairly simple. Surely I could figure out how to fix it.
But when I went to wash my hands in the sink, there was no water. I tried the kitchen faucet: nothing. The well was out of commission.
I can fix a lawn tractor or a toilet. I can clean the chimney. I can lay tile, paint walls, and varnish floors. I tung oil wooden countertops. I sew. I garden. But I don’t know squat about wells.
I knocked on my neighbor’s door. His house is hooked to my well, so he’d have a vested interest in helping me. But he wasn’t home.
I knocked on another neighbor’s door—the same neighbor who splits my wood and puts the toy tire on my car when I have a flat in the driveway. And even though he’d been nursing a sore foot elevated on his sofa, he put on his boots and drove to my well house. I apologized, but he assured me, “We’re family out here.” He was talking about the handful of neighbors who live on our dead-end dirt road.
While he and I were tinkering around in my well house (He did most of the tinkering. I held the flashlight and ran for tools he requested.) another neighbor pulled up, having seen my well house door open and vehicles parked nearby. Now two members of the “family” were fixing my well, which needed bona fide repair—something electrical that I would not have managed on my own, requiring some two-man muscle that I could not have achieved even if I had known what to do.
The second gentleman then said to me, “Now, I’ve told you, if you ever need anything, just holler. But you’ve got to holler!” (I hadn’t knocked on his door.)
I don’t see my neighbors often. We all appreciate our privacy. That’s part of why we live out here in the woods. But I had tears in my eyes as I thanked these two.
That evening I ate dinner with “The Crown” and relaxed, knowing that the next day I’d begin Thanksgrieving preparations, armed with running water. I had previously wished the holiday would just go away, but now found myself grateful for the need to make these preparations. It felt like past holidays when I delighted in bringing people together.
On Thursday, while families across the nation were passing turkey and gravy around traditional Thanksgiving tables, I was reveling in the company of other people widowed in recent years. We had a delicious potluck dinner and an afternoon filled with conversation and laughter.
Five hours after the event began, there were hugs and—ahem—expressions of thanks as the party broke up. It was a fine holiday. With luck, maybe a new tradition.
A week prior, I’d had a “holiday meltdown,” unable to face the season without my beloved husband. And just days ago, I thought a broken well pump would finish me off.
But family comes in all shapes and sizes. And I am, indeed, thankful for that.