by Tara Shafer posted in Parenting

I remember clearly my first son?s first Thanksgiving. We hosted at my house and my son was in those golden months of babyhood. He was 9 months old and would chortle obligingly at anyone who tapped the table as if it were, hands down, the funniest thing he?d ever seen.

 
I had not expected to be so moved by the holiday. I struggle with the complicated historical roots of Thanksgiving. On that particular day, though, I was taken up with making my turkey, all the sides, and managing oven space. I was not thinking especially hard about anything.
And that is when I was blindsided by one of the most transcendent moments of my life. It happened when I sat down. I saw my husband holding the baby across the table. I saw what I had done. My extended family was gathered around the table and right there was this person I had contributed to the din. I had a new relationship to my family because I had added a generation. (There are many ways to do that and I celebrate them all). There were candles all over the table and tons to eat. I was caught off guard by the surge of gratitude I felt. I felt gratitude for my family from whence I had sprung in all sorts of ways. I felt gratitude for my body which had experienced more than one medical crisis prior to my pregnancy. I was still kind of shocked that me and my body (somehow always deliberately separated in in my mind) had managed to pull off the miracle of pregnancy and birth.
Mostly, I held grat...