The First Thanksgiving

     I have been too busy since Thanksgiving to post about Thanksgiving, so today is the day. By the first Thanksgiving I am not referring to the pilgrim/Indian kind.  This was the first Thanksgiving I can remember spending at my childhood home in Missoula that was not shadowed by my mother's mental illness. She was not there to sit at the table, there were no strange noises coming from her bedroom, I didn't even have to dread the duty visit to her dementia facility on the way out of town.  Our daughter and her husband drove over from Helena, my sister's family came from Kalispell.  We ate.  We took pictures.  We laughed. I have wondered since my mother's death in June if the Ghost of Christmas Past would pay me its annual holiday visit--the remnants of sorrow from childhood Christmases long forgotten. The Shadow. 
     The Ghost has come, but it came much later this year. It did not even make it to our Thanksgiving dinner. That is why this Thanksgiving was so different for me. Perhaps it will be the first of many.