The Renegade Writer Blog

In honor of Thanksgiving, Renegade Writer instructor Amy Paturel started a contest: Write an essay on what Thanksgiving means to you and you could win a free pass into her class Essay Writing: How to Find the Story in You — and Sell It, which starts on January 11.

Amy loved reading all your entries, but this beautiful essay by Kirsten Weir stood out. Kirsten, congratulations on winning the contest, and thank you for sharing your gift with us.

The Essay

November Fog
By Kirsten Weir

Last Thanksgiving, I was 10 weeks into the exhaustion, heartburn, and joy of my first pregnancy. As we settled around the table with my husband¹s family, he announced the news: “We are thankful that our family will be growing this year.” I beamed and clinked glasses with my virgin cocktail. Three days later, I miscarried.

The fall leaves died and dropped, and the first fat snowflakes fell. For the only time in my adult life, I dreaded traveling to Michigan to celebrate Christmas with my family. I tried to picture myself rolling out cookie dough alongside my mother and trading gifts under the tree. But it was so hard to see that happy holiday scene through the fog of sadness that followed me everywhere. Even so, I forced a smile and boarded the plane. As soon as we arrived in Detroit, my husband and I both were assaulted by an angry stomach virus. Christmas dinner was a thick, pink spoonful of Pepto-Bismol. Icing on the cake.

As the months passed, the fog thinned. It returned in July when my would-be due date came and went, and still we hadn¹t managed to conceive again. The summer was a bust, cold and drizzly, and before anyone knew what had happened, fall was upon us again. Almost overnight the trees turned scarlet. I adore the holiday season, to the point that my husband once asked if I grew up in a Norman Rockwell painting. But this year, I worried that the approaching celebrations would again fill me with melancholy.

Somehow, though, that hasn’t happened. Exactly when or why that fog melted away, I can’t say. I only know that I feel uncomplicated excitement as the third Thursday of November creeps closer. This year, for the first time ever, my husband and I will host Thanksgiving in our home in Maine. His family and mine will descend upon us from Michigan, Minnesota, Virginia. I started the shopping lists two months in advance: Brined and roasted turkey with chestnut stuffing, cranberry sauce with ruby Port, buttery dinner rolls and flaky pies all baked from scratch.

This Thanksgiving, our family is one tiny person smaller than I’d hoped it would be. Yet I know there is much to celebrate. My sister, newly engaged, will glow with the anticipation of her upcoming wedding. My mother and my mother-in-law will chatter and hoot like old pals. Our heavy wooden table will overflow with a bounty of food and drink. A dozen of us will crowd together, feasting and laughing and raising a glass to all that we are thankful for ­ a toast to friends, to the future, to hope. A toast to family.