I tuck the white tablecloth, still unfinished on the edges, up on the shelf in our new laundry room. There are eight years’ worth of Thanksgiving notes on that cloth, from dozens of friends hosted over as many years. It hasn’t been washed nearly as often as it should be, for fear any gratitudes might wash out.
A pang of sadness hits me when I realize this will be the first year in many that we don’t pull it out, as we will be traveling to family this Thanksgiving. For all those years that we felt the familiar grief of missing family, it now feels ironic to grieve the absence of one of our own traditions.
Why am I not more grateful for the gift of gathering with family this year? It is not lost on me the many, many times we mourned missing such gatherings during our near decade overseas. It’s just that, from that deep sense of loss and sorrow, many beautiful, life-sustaining traditions were born. These traditions rooted us in a foreign place; the holidays and holy days, hard as they may have been, were sacred and special to our family, for our own honoring of them.
These hard-won traditions bolstered our hospitality and oriented our sore hearts back to Christ. Yes, there was our annual Thanksgiving tradition to extend our tables as far as they would go, to welcome others from different backgrounds and places to share in the goodness of God over a feast together. Our family grew to love this day, scheming over whom we would invite, what we would serve (could we find a turkey this year?), and what flowers would be in bloom to grace the table (usually hydrangeas). And always the treat of pie for breakfast the next day. Oh yes, how different this day will look this year.
It’s another loss. The realization stings as viscerally as the tears. For any gain this side of our life overseas, there seems to be loss. We cannot escape it. I tuck a bag of thrifted Christmas décor away in our crawl space, to pull out in a few weeks when the snow flies.
Imagining Christmas in this new house brings some excitement — and also longing for home. Only that home is 9,000 miles away and now inhabited by some other family. I pull out my camera, looking for images of familiarity, of comfort, of home. Bright smiles on younger faces greet me, hot sunshine pouring through the photos, a video of our Christmas tree swaying in the breeze of our open window.
No December breezes this year, I think, with a prayer that this new home of ours will be snug in the coming freezing temps, sheltered amidst the winds of transition. The photos continue to intrigue me. There’s the familiar Jesse tree, sewn with felt when my babies were crawling and my days long. The simple, circular gold Advent wreath, adorning our table for as many years as we’ve had one, sitting atop the bright and bold shweshwe table runner. The tree (blowing in the wind) holding collected ornaments of accumulated years, each one holding a memory.
The collection of books on the shelf, featuring our annual Christmas read alouds and picture books, poetry and stories. The cookies and gingerbread houses, the friends gathered for carols, the Christmas crackers, the Twelfth Night party with the trees aflame. This wealth of tradition settles on me like a warm quilt. They are cozy, they are handmade, they are ours. These are the traditions that rooted us in all those years when we were far from home . . . as we were building a new home. Oh, how we are homesick for that home.
Not all is lost. These same traditions, nourishing our lonely and sad spirits for many holidays abroad, might just be the young roots our hearts need this year. Surely not all will translate well; some existed for that context, for the sole purpose of helping us to thrive in a distant and distinct place. We will miss and grieve those, I know. There always seems to be much to grieve when life is as transient as ours has been.
I stand up, looking out the window at a November unlike I’ve seen in many years. There’s a beauty in it, a beauty I have missed. It will all be well, the tiniest whisper stirs in my spirit. The grief and joy pour out all in the same breath. There is great joy in following where God leads — and great relief in knowing He is with us in all of the losses. This complicated intertwining of the expat life is not too much for him to bear; He knows all too well what it is to leave home for another foreign land.
Here, Father, take them, these traditions that served so well to root us to a place, to give us a sense of home and family. The littlest prayer is all my heart can offer today. These traditions we have come to love exist just for that purpose: rooting us in a place and time and pointing us back to Christ, to love, to grace. But Christ, we always have, even if our traditions must be lost in transition.
Maybe the tablecloth will resurface next year. Maybe I should try and wash it before then. Or maybe it won’t, and it will be a treasured remembrance of our family’s time in Southern Africa, when we built family away from family and fought for joy on some of the loneliest days.
For this year, my heart is sore in another way. Lonely in a stranger way. But just as God gave us a path forward in a new life nine years ago, He will again now in a new, foreign-to-us place. Traditions, mostly old and some new, will help us to grow roots again. Slowly, a house will begin to feel like home, and a life will grow in which we belong. All will be well.
