Most Memorable Thanksgiving (Part 1)

I attempted to start writing in hopes of churning out a memory that would be concise, clean, and coherent. I'm ending up with anything but. And yet I feel like I should ride this one out, so I've decided to make it an installment blog. I'll probably end up with at least three parts if I keep writing like I have been thus far. So, here's part 1 of my most memorable Thanksgiving:

I try so hard to merge my worlds. Some times more than others, but it always seems to be a constant at the forefront of my mind. I suppose I’ve grown sentimental in my old age in longing for simplicity and unity, but I also feel that living in fragments is not really the way God intended life to be lived.

I haven’t always thought this way. I once was an island—or at least considered myself one and did most everything in my power to alienate myself to some remote part of a hypothetical sea. No, I had to be taught, over time. But there was one mile marker, a point in time where I can look back and say, “that was the moment”.

Saturday, November 15, 2003. I had been making plans to drive home to North Carolina the Monday before Thanksgiving. That was before my 6:30 am phone call from my father who told me that while he and Micah were out watching the newly released Captain and Commander at the movie theatre he had gotten up to take Micah to the restroom, fallen down the steps, onto the hand rail, and ended up breaking his hip and shoulder.

Call me superstitious, but ever since my junior year of high school it seemed that our family in general and my father in particular had developed this knack for hospital visits punctually around the times of mid-terms and finals. So don’t think me cold and heartless when I say that I wasn’t too shaken or surprised when dad informed me that he was once again in the hospital just before another holiday. After all, it takes talent to be that predictable!

While I say that I was not surprised or shaken, I was however automatically shifted into responsibility/action mode. I can be a bit hot-headed and reactionary in times like that so I decided to call my long time sounding board for all things sane and sure—Der. He told me stay put until we knew more about what was going on. I wanted to go home. I just knew I needed to go home right then and there. Who else was going to take care of my family? The week that followed was the longest of my life I’m pretty sure. And all my friends knew it. So when Elizabeth Taylor asked me if there was anything at all she could do, I knew exactly what I wanted—to get home as soon as possible—but I had neither the courage nor the humility to ask for help to get there. So I phoned another friend, Joanna, like her father, another sounding board for all things sane and sure...