I’ve had 22 years worth of Thanksgivings now. When I was younger we would always spend the day at my grandmother’s house. My mum would dress all of us kids nicely and tell us to use our manners and be on our best behaviour, so we would be better behaved then the other kids there. For dinner I’d sit at the kid’s table, sadly I never got promoted to the adult table. To be honest I don’t know if the adult’s table was any fun… since most of our parents would make their way over to the kid’s table to hang out with us. When I moved to New jersey I was in second grade and every year we’ve lived up here we went to New York cit to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. We’d get there in the early to middle part of the parade then go eat dinner at the Stage Deli. It was our tradition. I’ve got years of photo’s of us kids at the parade.
^My brother's and I... how excited they look^
^My mum and i doing a Zoolander^
^My borthers enoying a thanksgiving Starbucks^
Then last year I spent it in France watching the parade on my laptop via a traffic cam. Not the most glamorous of thanks giving, but I had turkey burgers and it was still nice to spend it with Damien.
I loved spending thanksgiving with my family so much. Every year was something special. But this year’s Thanksgiving topped every past one.
Since the Hurricane hit my mum has been volunteering in Union Beach, New Jersey. Yesterday they had a Thanksgiving feast for the town so we went down as a family to help out. They set out tables and made it something special for the residents.
We mostly did the clean up afterwards. Sure it was fun goofing around and moving tables and food and all that. But the part for me that was the most touching was how amazing everyone there was. Some of the people helping us clean up were residents. The woman who organized it all was also a resident. They each had a story to tell of how it was during the hurricane and how it’s been since with cleaning up and rebuilding.
After we ate that afternoon my mum drove us around and gave us a tour of the town.
Seeing it all put a lot into perspective for me. I loved having the power out from the Hurricane but I had friends and co-workers complain about being out of electricity for a week was a task and how horrible it was. It made me feel guilty almost to know that I only had to go without power while people now have to go without homes.
A whole town of people lost their homes. Most of the houses we passed had the orange condemned tags on them and there’s talk of wrecking the first three streets worth of houses down and never rebuilding them. Many of the houses were one story so they lost everything. Think about it, pictures, home videos, heirlooms, everything! I was so fortunate that all we lost was power and our beach house was a second home to us so the damage there doesn’t matter much at all.
The part that was the coolest about Thanksgiving was that at the end of the night when we were packing it all away there were only a few volunteers that had stayed and everyone else was a resident of the town.
So there I was with my family helping move things mostly the left over food into the truck we were taking to a local tavern that was offering us their fridge space. When we got to the tavern I stayed in the fridge to organize everything and make sure that it would all fit. We easily filled it three quarters of the way. That food will be used at the pantry my mum works at later this week to give out hot meals to people, since most of them are still without power, staying in hotels still, or don’t have the means to cook.
It was a lot of fun to do the clean up though. We were all joking around and having a grand time. I got deputized by a local officer, needless to say I’ll be insufferable at home now. But over all it really was inspiring really.
Before thanksgiving all I knew of the town was stories and pictures I had seen from my mum and the stories she posted on her blog. That day made it something real and tangible. It wasn’t quite what I expected. You’d think that going to a town like this people would be sad and depressed. Yes they were sad but they weren’t hopeless. Everyone still had a smile on their face. They lost a lot but this is sort of like when wildfire burns a forest. Everything is temporarily lost but it grows back healthier and stronger.
I want to go back so I volunteer and meet more of the residents.
Thank you Union Beach for the best Thanksgiving!
