THIRD THANKSGIVING
Eleven pounds. Eighty-six ounces. Fresh. Organic. Not too heavy for me to lift into my grocery cart. Remember the brussel sprouts. Forget the cranberries. Because I burned my orange, cardamom, cranberry sauce in the crock pot yesterday. Making sauce no one will eat. Because really what we all want are good lingonberries with our feast. The hard-to-find ones costing seven dollars a jar. But I like the smell of simmering cranberries. Warms up our home with thoughts of holidays’ past. Until berries remind me of their fragility and burn. No longer evoking memories. Just another failed cooking attempt.
Earlier, when leaving for the store, gazed at sparkling crystals covering drive. Made mental note to sand upon return and remind sons to scrape mid-afternoon. Ensuring safety for myself, my mother, the delivery people. Before late November sun sets to soon.
Now arriving home, the back seat full for our upcoming feast. Sand our drive, pock-marked by your overuse of salt. Wanting once, a lifetime ago, to make sure I did not slip on this descending slope. Throwing grit down now. Missing you. Not because I do your chore. But because I simply miss you. Today. Yesterday. Tomorrow. Miss you on this sunny Sunday day.
Hours later sit with strangers in writing workshop. Flowing tears shift them in their seats. Like so many others blindsided by our pain. Spectators more comfortable with emotions on the page than in living truth. Curious voyeurs hoping against hope to keep covered their own pain while not empathizing with a slice of ours.
Tears emanate from truth told through poem written here and shared. Today, this Sunday before Thanksgiving, I bought my first Thanksgiving turkey since you died. We, no longer qualifying as refugees, welcomed at others’ Thanksgiving tables. Released this third Thanksgiving to celebrate on our own. The stuffing mine to overcook. The cranberries mine to burn. The gravy mine to whisk into lumps. The pumpkin pie mine to forget the sugar. Like the time my sons will not forget.
In following days leading up to event make another phone call asking to have your name removed from some bill, piece of mail. Like I have so many times these past twenty-seven months. Never ending, this removing you from our day-to-day business of living. Realize as this holiday approaches though that I must (once again) slow down. Be good to myself. Take care. Cease all dissassociations and denials. Just be in what was, what is not now, and what can be despite it all. A paradoxical trifecta of sorts. The holy trinity of living after trauma and death.
Third Thanksgiving. First turkey. Wonder what we will be thankful for this year. The brutality of what happened to us compounded by sons’ illnesses, mysterious and hard to treat? No. Will we be thankful for knowing and loving you? Will we be thankful for what we have accomplished in healing grief, trauma, illness? Will we be thankful for mercies still to come? Will we feel hope this day, our first alone. The first we trust ourselves to be alone just sons, me and my mother. Who will bring Norwegian lefse made with gluten free flour, thick instead of thin. Making us all remember when wheat lefse smeared with real butter rolled up easily. You wanting to sweeten yours with brown sugar. Me telling you this way is incorrect in purist lefse culture. You carving the turkey. Looking at me with silent words of, “I really do not know how to do this…”
Me believing you will figure it out. Like now I believe we will continue to figure out life without you as I dish up food. Light candles. Gather us into the grace of this day.
INVITE JENNIFER TO SPEAK
If your organization, church, podcast, conference, library, or literary festival is interested in inviting me to speak, preach, or lead a workshop, please click here: Invite Jennifer to Speak.
GOOD NEWS!
A Time to Mourn & A Time to Dance made the list of Best Christian Grief Books for 2022 at Choosing Therapy!
WHAT I AM READING
I love metaphor. I embrace metaphors for God in my own theological imagination, my own thinking about and encountering God. Rabbi Toba Spitzer’s new book is a welcome addition to my wonderings about God. Here is a small bit of her wisdom:
“There are two elements found in every spiritual and religious tradition that resonate with the power of Voice: music, and the sound of silence. Each of these modalities offer opportunities for transformative spiritual experience.” (109)
RECENT ARTICLES & UPCOMING EVENTS
Recognizing the Hidden Suffering of Addiction, Faith+Lead.
Devotional in Rise & Shine: 2022-2023 Devotion Book. ELCA School and Learning Centers.
October 1: Tara Eastman and I talk on her podcast, Holy Shenanigans.
October 4: Book Club with St. Mark Lutheran Church in Davenport, Iowa
October 10: “Being a Spiritual Writer,” with author Lori Erickson at the Iowa City Book Festival. Our session is at 6:30 PM at the Coralville Library.
October 22: “Trauma-Informed Worship” with Faith+Lead. (10-12–Online Only)
November 1: “Spiritual Care for Trauma” with Faith+Lead. (10-11:30–Online only)
November 8: “Spiritual Care for Trauma” with Faith+Lead. 10-11:30–Online only)
November 15: “Spiritual Care for Trauma” with Faith+Lead. (10-11:30–Online only)
November 29: “Spiritual Care for Trauma” with Faith+Lead. (10-11:30–Online only)
December: Essay (print/online) in Sundays and Seasons: Guide to Worship Planning, Year A 2023 (Augsburg Fortress)
WHAT’S UP IN 2023
There are a number of exciting possibilities incubating for 2023. Stay tuned!
THE VALUE OF REVIEWS
Being an author, especially a spiritual author, means also being my own marketing director. And I admit I have all sorts of feelings about being tied to the social media self-promotion cycle. Yet there has always been a business side to writing. So here’s what publishers, book sellers, and writers know about getting books into readers hands, eyes, and hearts:
NEWSLETTERS: The more people on an author’s newsletter email list, the more the author sells their books. You can be on my newsletter list by simply following my blog. To do so, press the SUBSCRIBE button on the upper left side of this page.
REVIEWS: The more online reviews a book receives, the more a book sells. Please consider reviewing my book on Goodreads and at my Amazon author’s page.
TIKTOK: If you post on TikTok, say something about my book AND use the hashtag #BookTok.
Thank you!
© October/November Newsletter, 2022: All rights reserved by the author.
Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez 
Yes, I made the pumpkin pie. In an attempt to be a purist, I purchased a pumpkin to cook before I made the filling. My mother in law , has looking over my shoulder, reminded me of every step……except to add the sugar. Included in fine dining, lumpy gravy, and stiff mashed potatoes, and cranberry fluff which no one ate except me.
My father was killed a few days before thanksgiving . Without dad, we had thanksgiving dinner in a diner in LaCrosse, Wisconsin along the main highway. We were all together yet alone.
Holidays are bittersweet ! I continue my attempt at perfection, but the thanksgivings of the past creep in !