One. 

Two. 

Three.

Blurry eyed.

Four. Five.

Six. Seven.

Tears plopped one after the other onto the cold, tile floor as I sat folded in half on the toilet seat in Grandpa's powder blue bathroom, holding up my head with my hands.

My Thanksgiving was filled with food and family. It was also filled with flipping thru photo albums from decades past, finding homes for once-treasured items, and flinging trash bags into the beds of trucks to take to the city dump.

I'd found myself on this toilet seat once already this holiday...yesterday as I remembered and wept for all those who would not have the cozy, celebratory, family-filled, food-filled day that my love ones and I were privileged to experience together. For those who found no food, no family, and no celebration on their side of Thanksgiving Day, I wished I would have used time and resources differently to offer love in ways it was needed most. (I mean, really, if anyone should do such things, shouldn't it be a pastor?) After some prayer and a tear or fifty, I made my way out and rejoined my family for the rest of the day's festivities as if all was well. 

Tonight I found myself back on that same toilet seat with tears in my eyes thinking about all of the things you're not supposed to think about on holiday, particularly about the day when those I love most will no longer surround me on holidays such as these. 

I get that it's irrational and I get that it's a waste of energy. This is not news to me. But my feelings have historically presented themselves in the most energy-wasting ways at the most inopportune times, so it was no surprise they showed up while being surrounded by family I only see a few times a year. 

My father and sister were preparing to leave my grandmother's house where we'd all convened for one more holiday celebration before her house is put on the market in the new year, and I began to feel an incredible sadness--that she and my grandfather were not with us for this final Thanksgiving as a family in their home, that holidays are not what they once were when we were children, that one day it would be mine and my sister's turn to go thru our parents' things--making decisions we don't want to make, deeply feeling things we don't want to feel.

Blair called from the other side of the bathroom door before she and dad went out to the truck asking if I was okay. I gave my best "Yep, I'm good!" and heard the front door close behind them. I eventually surfaced from the loo and returned to my chocolate pie. 

Next thing I know, she's back in the house and saying she needs to talk to me. 

Puzzled, I follow her into the den away from our mum and her sisters, followed her instructions to put down my pie, and followed her lead in embracing one another like we meant it. We breathed deeply and cried quietly together for just a few minutes before she headed out the front door once more.

Turns out we both felt it. The pain of grief: both for our grandparents and for time. Growing up is hard for a number of reasons. I think one of the most difficult is that time somehow gets smaller. You're more awake. Your "feelers" as I call them are on autopilot, stuffed down deep as you go thru the mundane of every day...until they're not, and "hurt like hell" doesn't even seem appropriate for the strong feelings that overtake you in the most inconvenient of places and times. 

I'll forever be thankful for memories of holidays past, and one day maybe I'll even appreciate holidays present for the true gift that they are. Even though we are changing and time is changing, there is still plenty to be thankful for. 

Stuff turkeys if you must but please, dear friends, do not stuff down your feelings. Feel them, take note, and move forward gracefully--using them to fuel you in loving others better in the here and now.