I’m having a hard time getting this dinner going. I come to the computer. Type. Go to the cutting board. Slice. Come to the computer. Type. Go to the stove. Turn knobs. Come back to the computer. Type. And so on. Cooking this meal could take all day. But I don’t know how to do it any other way.

I need the writer me today as much as I need the chef me.

I’m feeling the shocks of no longer being Daddy’s little girl. Last Thanksgiving was my first without him, but I didn’t feel the loss like I do now. Last year, some of my siblings and I gathered our families at my Mom’s mountain top stone house in West Virginia. We had a big, traditional meal that I helped cook (helping a matriarch do the cooking is key here). We had all spent years alternating holidays between my divorced parents, so it seemed that Dad was simply somewhere else, a mere phone call away. I missed him, but in an abstract way. Also, I had the distraction of a new fiancé to introduce to the family.

Grief counselors will tell you to not make any big decisions in the year after someone you love dies. Of course, this is excellent advice. Of course, I didn’t listen. After four years of being alone and three months of being fatherless, I met Scott, had a whirlwind romance, and got engaged. All the benefits of a newly formed couple helped me through the holiday season last year. But of course, the relationship didn’t last. How could it? So, this year, no such distractions.

It’s me, Sarah, and my brother. And the stove. I’ve never cooked Thanksgiving dinner without my mom or stepmother, or with so small of a crowd. My father’s absence cannot be hidden. I can see now that things have changed. And that they will not be the same again.

I’m thankful for so much. I’m teaching my daughter how to make the green bean casserole (you know the one – with cream of mushroom soup and French’s fried onions on the top) that is a staple at our holiday gatherings. Sarah helped choose all the dishes we will eat today, making the nontraditional meal I had considered very traditional. My brother is on his way down from Charlotte, his voice – so like my father’s – comforting on the phone. In a time of economic insecurity, I can still set a full meal on the table that sat in my great-grandmother’s kitchen. So, I am indeed thankful.

But – as holidays bring us together, they also remind us of who is not here. And I want to spend a moment honoring him. So I type, using the writer me to help the chef me get the job done.

Honor who is with you today. And also honor who is not. And be thankful for both.