For the first time in four years, I walked into my home on Thanksgiving day. The last Thanksgiving I spent with my family had been detestable. My father was drunk again. My mother was screaming at me or my sister or her mother - anyone who her path. My grandmother was chain smoking in the ratty chaise lounger cursing under her breath for every real or imagined sin she observed. I couldn’t help in the kitchen without being called a sissy boy, and I couldn’t watch the TV in the living room without it becoming a knock-down, drag-out fight with my old man. I was homeless with my own family.
“Dammitt, can’t you do anything?” my mother bellowed as I stood in the corner of the kitchen with my arms crossed. I blinked twice, expecting to feel the full force of her hand across my cheek, then walked calmly to my room. I took my school books out of my backpack and stuffed as many clothes as I could in their place. I walked past my grandmother, past my father, and ignored my mother as she yelled, “Where the hell are you going?”
I had no plan; I just left. My family had figuratively abandoned me and now I was literally deserting them. I bounced from friend’s house to friend’s house and eventually found myself downtown, where I stayed. Under a bridge, in a shelter, on a park bench. Downtown was my new home.
Four Thanksgivings had passed and on every one of those Thursdays, I thought of my family. A part of me wanted to go home, but a part of me knew that some things never changed.
This year, however, I just went home.
With a deep breath and anxiety weighing on my shoulders, I opened the front door without knocking and quietly walked in. My mother was clean and wearing a dress as she moved around the kitchen salting this and stirring that. My father was sober, carving a beautiful turkey. My grandmother, while still on the chaise lounge, smiled at me as I walked in. She had tears in her eyes as she announced to the family, “He’s home! Our boy is home!”
My sister ran into my arms and cried into my chest, announcing through her sobs that she had missed me. I felt the lump in my throat grow. I felt my chest tighten and as my mother embraced us both, I let the tears flow. I looked across the room at my father.
He wiped his hands before he slowly walked over to me. My mother and sister released me and stepped to the side making room for his brawny figure. “Welcome home, boy,” my father said as he kicked my foot.
He kicked my foot?
Then he kicked it again. “It’s time to go, boy,” he said a little louder. “C’mon, boy” the gravely voice continued, “If we want our turkey to be hot, we gotta get in line now, boy.” I blinked my eyes and saw, not my father, but Santy Claus, the old man who’d befriended me and taken care of me on the streets four years ago. He’d been a constant companion to me. He’d become my family. And even though he’d never learned to call me by my name, I was thankful to have a companion as concerned as the old, while-bearded man.
I stretched as I crawled from under the picnic table where I’d been napping.
“Happy Thanksgiving, Santy Claus,” I said as I placed my arm around his shoulder.
He patted the middle of my back as we walked toward Twelve Disciples Shelter, “Happy Thanksgiving, boy.”