This Might Help

Thanksgiving Musings on Loss, Love, Life... and Shopping

I’m waking up to a quiet house with sleeping children, the morning sun stretching over the lawn, a fresh cup of steaming coffee, and a book I can’t put down. Is there anything better?

And yet.

Two nights ago, I was wandering around my home, aching with longing for my kids, looking at their empty bedrooms, and feeling that unique sense of loneliness that comes from non-custody days or, perhaps later, from an emptier nest.

@zibbyowens

Zibby Owens on Instagram: "No rhyme or reason to it, but someti…

The holidays exacerbate everything, of course. The good, the bad. Yesterday, driving home from Starbucks with one of my daughters in the front seat, I clicked on my right-turn signal, realized that the next time I went to my mom’s house in that direction my stepdad wouldn’t be there — ever again — and burst into tears. Sudden loss doesn’t feel any better just because someone was in their eighties.

I’ve realized that there is no emotional preparation for missing someone. I try. I anticipate. I worry in advance. But the absence of someone — temporarily for non-custody days, permanently through loss — is something the mind can’t fool itself into being ready for. It just hurts, like a knife hurled in through the top of my head that slices through to my toes. Instant.

Sometimes the pain passes as fast as it comes. By the time I pulled into my driveway yesterday, I’d wiped my eyes and carried in the Refreshers smiling. But sometimes it lingers, heavy on my chest.

Today, my house is full. Footballs will fly. Laughs, echo. We’ll laugh like last night, lying in a heap together watching “The Middle.” I know it is all fleeting. I’m trying hard to clutch it to my chest. Taking photos. Writing this. Noticing. Begging my mind to record every detail. Imprint it. Again and again. But no matter what I do, these moments and memories will also pass.

Last night in the middle of dinner, one of my daughters said, out of nowhere, “One day, I’ll be the grandmother and I’ll be telling everyone about you!”

Slayed.

My son later whispered, seriously, as if I could control it, “Please don’t get Alzheimer’s.”

We are all aware of it, the tick-tick of time. People we can’t be with today on a day supposedly about family. It is imperfect, this celebration. But I am still thankful.

I’m thankful for the abundance I’ve been given in my life so that I can give back and help others. I’m thankful for the unlikely, magical outcome of having four children, a great second marriage, fantastic family, and wonderful friends. I’m thankful for everyone still alive who I can hug and for the memories of everyone I wish so much that I could hug today. I’m thankful I got to love them at all.

My mother frequently uses the word “bittersweet.” I think it fits.

So to all of you feeling the joy of today — the parade! the sweet potatoes! the reunions! — and the accompanying sorrow like a side of gravy, you are not alone. We are all in it together. And even though societal constructs, political disagreements, and misguided prejudices threaten to tear us apart, we are a team of loving, feeling, breathing humans who are fundamentally, mostly, good. Who marvel in a delicious bite. Who smile seeing someone special. Who love our children. Who worry about our bodies and how long and how well they’ll carry us through this lazy river of relationships and reality.

If we could just hold on to that, what makes us the same instead of what makes us different, personalities not policies, perhaps we could have a little more peace. A little less fear. A little more pride as a people.

So here’s to an imperfect holiday made better by the reminder to just stop and be grateful for the things and people we have and love, and not all that we don’t and wish we did. The ultimate glass-half-full kind of day.

Let’s let it all go. Find solace in simplicity. Sunshine waking up a slumbering tree. Words on a page that make you grab your heart. Warm coffee and the soft coat of a well-fed dog. Kids. Family. Love.

And because I can’t help myself, I have to share what I worked on yesterday. Here are three gift guides I crafted for your shopping pleasure. I spent so long on these — and had some eager helpers — so hope you enjoy. There is a small affiliate fee associated when you buy from the lists which we put right back into Zibby Media and all our endeavors to connect readers, authors, and each other, and to stand up for the values we believe in.

Gift guides:

Gifts for Teens, Tweens and the Young at Heart

Gifts for Moms, Sisters, Aunts, Girlfriends

Hanukkah-Themed Gifts

Great Gift Books

I’m also grateful to all of you for continuing to support the books we publish and helping get On Being Jewish Now on the USA Today list for week #26 and Lihi Lapid’s I Wanted to Be Wonderful on for week #3.

And I’m grateful that Minnie Rose on 73rd and Lex has permanently shared their space with Zibby’s Bookshop. We’re curating a new collection there so all existing books on the shelves are 30% off in person. Pop in and pick up some signed books and curated reads for the holidays.

Finally, seriously, everyone says this to their subscribers (I’ve been told this five times this morning already in various newsletters) but I MEAN IT. I’m grateful that you care enough to read what I have to say. You are not numbers. You are hugs and conversations and messages and connection. You are everything.

And you help me every day get through whatever it is just by letting me know you feel it all, too. And though it seems dark — I feel better when you feel bad, too! — it’s what unites us. We may feel the aches and longings alone in our living rooms, but when we read each other’s words, we know that we are in it together. And that makes all the difference. At least, to me.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends. As they say at my kids’ school, “Let us bless this new day as yet untouched and undiscovered.”

Let’s do this.