Today in the United States of America, it is Thanksgiving, but in truth there are many things I’m not grateful for. Such as, the deaths of my parents. No, I will never be grateful for that.

Thanksgiving is the holiday I remember most from my childhood.It was the holiday where there would be food and time spent together, with traditions of recipes and movies to watch and eating at the dining room table (mine was the stereotypical “tv tray” family of the 70s and 80s, otherwise). Given that we were a small family of three, there honestly wasn’t much else special to mark the day.

Yet, somehow, we always did.

So yes, this is the holiday when missing them really hits home, moreso than Christmas which was usually more stressful than fun. Here I miss watching It’s a Wonderful Life (shaddup) on our large box of a TV while the dogs wandered from human to human looking pathetic. I miss my mother insisting on A Christmas Story while Poppa argued for A Christmas Carol. I miss my mother’s cooking and my father bustling around the house to “get it ready” (still don’t know what that meant, other than rearranging the dinning room table).

Well, I just miss them. Period.

I’m not grateful for their deaths. I’m not grateful for having to live without them. I’m not grateful for anything like that because I don’t believe in the mystical promise that “everything happens for a reason.” No, it doesn’t.

Instead, we make  a reason out of the mess that we are left with. So what I am grateful for is the opportunity I had to know them as people, and not just parents. I’m grateful for the dozens of times they took me to see Star Wars when it was original released in the theater. I’m grateful for inheriting my mother’s way with words, and my father’s kindness.

I’m grateful for what I had, not what I lost. Today is a good day for remembering that.