Chew Cud

Some of you who are squeamish may have already assumed this one is not for you. It’s your lost. Since I am the one who writes, I am the one who gets to choose and I am not ready to leave Thanksgiving yet. This is how the title ties in. My daddy taught animal husbandry and I know odd facts not necessarily discussed in the general public. The cows he raised had four parts to their stomachs. Instead of chewing food thirty times like your mother taught you, they have a system of chewing, bringing up, chewing again, until finally it completes the cycle that gives the most nourishment from what is given.

That’s how Thanksgiving was for me this year. I was suffitted with traveling demands, change in schedule, an abundance of relatives and their love, and, of course, a variety of food. Throw in a piñanta and a group picture of 51 in a barn and the not able to digest level was reached. The trip home required focus on navigated through intense rain showers. Home had a list waiting that was demanding my attention.

So, it wasn’t until I received the file of pictures that middle son sent out that I could pull out moments and really cherish each. I have come to the ranch for most Thanksgivings since 1963 and some of those present were part of the original gathering. The first year had only 15 of us and this one was the chance to see how branches of the family tree had grown new twigs. I attached names to the great-greats that I did not have sorted out and which ones belonged to whom. One picture was an early morning coffee with me and a niece up early to tend turkey #1 even as her mother had through so many years, Her grown up son, my son, and I stuffed non-candy in the yellow bird piñata they took to hang at the barn. I got to greet one group who came from Chicago and hold a 9 month old who came to me cheerfully before he entered the main house and noise. Relatives and fringers who were related to someone organized food and set up tables on an extended porch. We wouldn’t have had that amazing all together picture if a sister of an in-law hadn’t been a professional. What had been a overstuffed feeling eased as remembering each bite of an overwhelming day helped the whole be a thankful time to be savored and nourished to meet the need to belong and to celebrate.

God sets the lonely in families. Psalm 68:6