Faith over fear is nothing if we’re not wise
- Melissa Herrera: Not Waiting for Friday
- November 22, 2020
- 1695
That old wax Thanksgiving turkey got me in the feels again. When I see it, I think of Mom’s old electric knife that sliced through the meat every year like butter. Did she keep it sharpened? Is there a place to do that? We’d stand beside the baking pan and nab succulent pieces of the bird as they were plated on the gold-rimmed platter.
All I know is that the wax turkey sat on the table every year I can remember being alive — alongside the bowls of mashed potatoes dripping in brown butter, flavorful morsels of dressing so rich they made your toes curl and grandma Sundheimer’s pumpkin pie. When we were dividing up Mom’s things, I chose the wax turkey, along with the gold-rimmed platter, and it came home to live on my table.
Mom has been gone for three years. Dad has been gone for 11. This year’s table will hold one less as well, with the untimely passing of my nephew-in-law. He leaves behind a wife (my niece) and three daughters. When all my family is present, the table seats around 45.
This year’s Thanksgiving table will seat three: my husband, my daughter and myself.
Don’t get me wrong. I want the big gathering, but I don’t want it this year. This is the year we stay cozy inside, assembling smaller versions of Thanksgiving, teaching ourselves discipline in the face of crisis. This isn’t the year to buck the admonitions and throw caution to the wind. In normal years that aren’t 2020, I’d tell you to do what you want, that it’s your choice. But this year isn’t that year, not this one.
My ire rises sharply when I hear phrases that tell me to “just pray harder” or “your faith must be stronger” in the face of an illness so severe it’s taken upward of 250,000 people since last winter. I want to shout back, “Have those that died not prayed hard enough? Or was their faith too weak?” And then I let the breath out of my lungs as I seek to regain my composure, allowing those words to float up into the ether.
I am a rebel in the face of someone telling me what I should or shouldn’t do, but not now, not this. I rejoice for those who have lived through the virus. I mourn for those who haven’t, those physically present souls we could reach out and touch until we couldn’t.
This year the wax turkey will sit on my kitchen table. We will rise and make strong coffee, hopefully dipping cream sticks someone remembered to buy. I’ll turn on Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, a yearly tradition that will look very different without spectators. I’ll make grandma Sundheimer’s pumpkin pies and roast a small, boneless turkey. The mashed potatoes will be creamy and rich, and I’ll attempt the dressing in hopes it’ll be as good as my sister makes it. We will watch movies together and FaceTime our other children who are in their homes in other states.
Most of all, I will miss my family and the loud, boisterous reverberations we make, wherever we are. I want to make sure every dear face is present when the coast is finally clear. Because having faith over fear means nothing if we’re not wise.