Narrating Social Work Through Autoethnography by Stanley Witkin

Author:Stanley Witkin [Witkin, Stanley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780231158817
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2014-06-03T00:00:00+00:00

THAT THANKSGIVING

My sister died nine years ago. The first major holiday after her death was Thanksgiving. Every Thanksgiving since, I can feel the turkey and all the rest of it stuck in my throat as it stuck there that first Thanksgiving—and the surreal experience of trying to act like it was a holiday, like other holidays.

I think it is common for families to talk about the last Thanksgiving dinner during the current one—you know, the usual: who was there, what was said, how this pie was like or not like the one last year, and so forth. There are the various family stories that require retelling. There is the taking of one’s seat—the place where you usually sit or used to sit when you were a kid.

Especially that first Thanksgiving without my sister, my family did very little of what families do. We talked, but only about what was immediately in front of us.

Pass the butter. The white meat is very moist. Would anyone like more wine?

The children offered some relief since they had their usual food needs to attend to. But my sister’s absence hung in the air, between forkfuls, swallows, and meaningless remarks. Her place was filled up with children along a bench. She was there in someway it was felt. But mostly she was not there in all ways familiar and common—and that was what was mostly at the table—her absence.

And there was the turkey—dead and center on the white tablecloth. It could not help but feel more like a funeral than a holiday meal.

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