Our Thanksgiving dining rooms are festooned with good fortune, life’s bounty, our loved ones, and the soft, warm comfort of home.
And while we give thanks for all that surrounds us, our immediate thoughts and feelings are given rise by our senses: We see the smiles punctuated by white meat turkey and a little green thing that resembles broccoli (between two of your teeth, right there, nope, next one over, there, you got it); we taste the Bell’s seasoning in the traditional family stuffing (seconds, please, and pass the gravy); we hear mom’s comically profane “oh, fiddle sticks” when she realizes the crescent rolls are still in the oven and now probably ruined; we smell the burnt dinner rolls; we feel the pants grow a size smaller, the shirt button tighten around the gut, and a nap coming on.
We give thanks for all of it.
And four hours later it all goes into a sandwich.
We set a table for which we are blindly thankful.
On the 19th floor of the South Mall Towers on Pearl Street in Albany, a knock on an apartment door breaks the silence in a long, nondescript hallway. Need has built for itself a comfortable life here. It is already 12 hours into Thanksgiving Day.
Outside the hallway window stand the Empire State Plaza, the Times Union Center, the shiny structures of commerce and industry — buildings and offices that most other days house the center of government, a world of entertainment, and the heartbeat of a capital city.
A middle-aged woman answers the door. She is greeted with a hearty, if not overly upbeat, “Happy Thanksgiving” from two strangers delivering her holiday meal. In one reheatable container is the turkey, dressing, potatoes, vegetable. In another is a piece of pie, a cup of cranberry, and a cup of applesauce. A loaf of bread and a small container of gravy rest atop the pile. All cooked, packaged and delivered by volunteers.
Her emotions get the better of her. Through tears, she thanks the two for the work they do; for giving her a chance to enjoy a holiday meal she would otherwise have gone without. While she hugs one volunteer and again expresses her gratitude, the second volunteer carries the meal into the apartment, setting it on a tiny, cramped, hygiene-starved kitchen counter. Human curiosity forces the eyes to make a quick sweep across the disheveled apartment.
There, but for the grace of God, I go, back toward the hallway, where Karen and her sobbing new acquaintance are finishing an embrace. As I walk past, I also get a hug. The woman thanks us again and blesses us numerous times.
She says she is thankful for the work we do. For the meal she is about to enjoy. And for her son, who, after a couple of years in Iraq, suffers with post-traumatic stress. Her eyes are filled with tears, her heart is filled with ache, and her words are filled with praise and thanks. For us.
She closes the door, we pick up our baskets of food and head off to the next apartment to which we have been dispatched to spread holiday cheer.
Another knock knock knock echoes down the barren hallway. Behind us, well below on the street, the shiny Times Union Center marquee reminds us that Disney on Ice will be here in less than two weeks. An apartment door slowly opens…
For the past four Thanksgivings, and for as many as we have remaining, Karen and I are volunteer drivers for Equinox Inc. Community Services Agency in Albany, delivering meals to those less fortunate. The Thanksgiving feast at chez Mattison is served on the Sunday after the holiday. The holiday itself is spent among several thousand strangers in the Empire State Plaza concourse, where we are handed prepared turkey dinners with many of the traditional go-withs, a stack of address cards, and a mission — to improve the quality of life in one tiny corner of one giant world, even if it’s only for one meal.
This year, the gluttony at our house will be served in no-holds-barred fashion, as the complete kitchen renovation will be put to its first — and the year’s largest — culinary test. From the shiny new fridge, across the shiny new countertop, into the shiny new oven and eventually into the shiny new dishwasher, the embarrassment of good fortune and a wonderful life will serve to fill us well past the “full” line.
And for dessert, a monster helping of humility. The more perspective we allow into our lives, the more life each life contains.
Several floors below the grateful soldier’s mom, the elevator doors open in a hallway where two apartment neighbors are hanging out, chatting. In a Leave it to Beaver world, there would be a picket fence, neatly manicured lawns, and no want between them. One would be leaning on the fence, watching as the other rakes his leaves.
On this Thursday, however, one neighbor stands, leaning on the window sill, keeping an eagle’s eye on the sparse South Pearl Street traffic below, his apartment door open behind him. The other neighbor sits in a wheelchair in his own doorway, an adorable little dog checking out the strangers with baskets of food, walking toward this scene as the elevator doors close.
The two neighbors banter as neighbors do. “Here comes your meal, Dave,” says the first fellow — the one with all of his limbs in tact — as we approach. “Hi, guys,” says Dave. “Thanks so much for coming. This is so nice.” With his one “good” arm, he grabs a large pair of rubber-tipped wooden scissors — designed to help the handi-capable reach things — and with practiced precision picks up a door stopper, wedges it under the door, and wheels his contorted and crippled body further into the hallway. His little dog runs over to tell him that strangers are coming and it smells like they have food. They seem OK.
As we knocked on doors and delivered meals to other neighbors in this hallway, we chatted at length with these two men. Our lives would never knowingly cross in any other circumstance. On the surface, a shame; in reality, a moot point.
“Inspiring” is a word not large enough to describe how it felt to spend time Thursday morning with the gentle man who was dealt a lifetime of unimaginable challenge in an emaciated body.
But inspiration is one thing Karen and I receive every Thanksgiving as we share a small amount of our time in this simplest of ways. To those who answer a stranger’s knock at the door on what would otherwise be just another Thursday, it seemingly makes a world of difference.
For this reason, I can’t determine who benefits more. There is a palpable sense of reciprocity in the “thanks” as well as the “giving.”
Here, indeed humbly, but for the grace of God, go I.
mattison's avenue 