Thanksgiving requires work: changing linens, cooking and baking, laundering, housecleaning. With Karen unable to do her typical hosting, the family stepped up to do all those things Karen typically does.

My brother the doctor repaired Karen’s raised garden bed. Delicious foods were prepared by all. Every time I walked through the kitchen, someone else was at the sink washing dishes. Sunday morning, after everyone had hit the highway, I washed dishes and emptied the refrigerator of mangled leftovers and made peppermint tea with honey for Karen.

I unpacked suitcases from our Houston trip and interrogated Karen about what goes to the dirty laundry pile and which to the clean pile for restocking her closet, realizing how long she has done this for me, among many other things. In my morning reading, I found this from Wendell Berry:

A Sabbath poem

Teach me work that honors Thy work,

the true economies of goods and words,

to make my arts compatible

with the songs of the local birds.

Teach me patience beyond work

and, beyond patience, the blest

Sabbath of Thy unresting love

which lights all things and gives rest.

Wendell Berry

The goods and words of caretaking, of cooking and cleaning and organizing our home gives me peace in the midst of our battle.

Thank you, Karen, Mom, Terri, Debbie, Grandma Grace, Grandma Mildred, Ann Mason, and so many more who have taught me the patience beyond work, and beyond that, the unresting love which lights all things and gives rest.