Thanksgiving is only five days away, but it seems like forever; a too-distant, too-short timeout from grievances that have fractured our families, our communities, our nation – and can’t be vaccinated away but might be eased with doses of gratitude. Over the next few days, I’ll be looking for some by questing backwards through family gatherings that saved me from past ills. Come with me – maybe we’ll both find something. Today: A Family Brawl
“Two-and-a-half hours – the driving time to my parents’ house – wasn’t 
time enough to soothe how I felt about a friend’s suicidal plunge into alcoholism.
Maybe my family can help, I thought, while pulling into the driveway.
It was the day before Easter in 1981 and my wild Irish mother had called her seven children home for our version of a traditional get-together, which because we almost didn’t have traditions would be something completely fabricated by mom during a burst of pacing the floors and smoking and talking out loud to herself.
Mom greeted me at the door with my name on her lips and a champagne bottle in hand. “Hurry,” she said, “everybody’s waiting in the backyard” – in the circus tent she had rented, along with folding tables covered with cheap plastic table cloths from K-Mart.
It was our first gathering since the previous year when she threw a beer bust for my high school brother’s graduation. More than 500 young people so clogged the streets that I had to park blocks away.
A clatter of dishes and boisterous talk poured from the tent as I approached and peered in to see the whole clan around a table filled with booze bottles and a well-browned, well-dried-out turkey. Mom, for all her glories, was the world’s worst cook.
“Look who’s here,” she cried as I entered, and every face turned toward me.
The momentary silence gave me the moment I had been waiting for – a chance to release my woes upon a sea of empathetic hearts. I threw my arms out like I was the Jesus statue overlooking Rio de Janeiro and implored everyone to bow their heads for a moment of silence and prayer.
“My best friend Frank is struggling with alcoholism and I ask that you pray for him.”
Shall we say that my timing was off – that a such a prayer for grace is best served before the wine and beer?
In the stunned calm that I interpreted as prayerful, each family member sensed that the special moment they had been drinking toward was at hand. Before them stood not a sad soul seeking solace but a straight man looking for a punchline. Instead of a fervent group “Amen,” my sister spake in mock reverence.
“Dearrr God, pleassse don’t let poorrr Frank die.”
A drumstick flew across the table and hit me in the chest, whereupon the entire meal was served – in the air. Food fight! As my sober self stood apart and watched in awe, family members flung and ducked and grappled. Chairs went backwards, tables were upended. It was a happy brawl until my dad grabbed the garden hose like a cop at a riot and cooled everybody down.
God, I needed that crazy moment and thought of it, not Frank, on the two-and-a-half-hour drive home the next day.
A few months later, Frank lay drunk and crying at my feet, begging me to – PLEASE – quit saving his life and let him die. This time I listened and went into AA while Frank went into the ground, leaving me without him or a bottle or a family member close by to lean on – until the next year when a sweet young woman invited me to her family gathering.
TOMORROW: A Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving