Happy Thanksgiving, Dad.

I’ve always loved Thanksgiving. It’s the one day of the year that I don’t regret turning my stomach into a gastrointestinal clown car to see how much I can fit it in. In the midst of my second round of belt loosening and a serious case of the meat sweats, I display the triumph of the human spirit and find room to stuff in one more piece of pecan pie. And my love of Thanksgiving isn’t just because I get to spend time with my family and eat enough to feed several herds of elephants, It’s also the start of the most wonderful time of the year.

Regardless of your religious affiliation, you have to appreciate Christmastime. I know the holidays are hard on some people on a personal scale, but you have to love Christmas at least from the macro level. Yes, we have taken it to the extreme level of consumerism, but at least a lot of those purchases are intended to make someone else happy. It’s the time of year when people seem a little bit nicer and a little more generous, and people feel closer to their families. And now that I have little kids, my joy gets kicked into overdrive when I see the smiles on their beautiful little faces when they see Christmas lights and decorations.

Six years ago, I called my mom early that morning to wish her a Happy Thanksgiving. She sounded really down, and I asked her what was wrong. “Your dad is not doing well. I don’t have a good feeling about this.” He had been in the hospital for almost two months recovering from his open-heart surgery. He had plenty of bad days over the last few weeks, so I thought this was just another day. “He’ll be okay, Mom. He’s been through this before.”

Several hours later, I was at my in-laws’ house when my sister called. “Hey, you need to come to the hospital. The family needs to meet with hospice.”

Hospice. Everybody knows what that word means. “Thanksgiving” and “hospice” are two words that should never be spoken in the same sentence.

It was less than a week before Thanksgiving that I gave him a high-five as the nurse wheeled him off to physical therapy, the last step in his recovery. The last thought going through my mind as he slapped my hand on the way out of the door was that he would be gone less than a week later.

After that year, the holidays should make me sad, but they don’t. Sure, these days would be more fun if he were here, but I could say that about every day of the year. There is no seasonality to grief when you lose a parent. Every day is a little less funny since he’s been gone.

I feel the strange confluence of guilt and joy this time of year. I feel guilty that I still feel joyful, but I can’t be sad during the holidays because dad would not have wanted that. He had a relentless drive to make sure that everybody had fun every day, and it would destroy him if he knew he did something to make someone sad, especially this time of year.

Nobody loved Christmas more than my dad.  He used to wear a Santa hat when he went to the mall during the holidays.  He already had the white beard and the belly, so the hat was the final touch that made every child in the mall tug on their mommy’s shirt and ask, “Is that Santa Claus?” Yeah, he wore that hat for a reason.

So here’s to you, Dad. I will do my best to honor you and try to make somebody’s day fun today. But I’m not going to make any kid think that I’m Santa Claus. My beard isn’t white enough, and I don’t have the belly. And least, not yet. If I keep eating the way I have the last two days, I just might get there by Christmas.