The Empty Chair

A Thanksgiving Ritual of Memory and Belonging: The Empty Chair
 
Thanksgiving has a way of reminding us what’s changed — not only who is missing from the table, but how different we all are from the last time we sat here together.
 
At first glance, it’s all familiar: the scent of roasting vegetables, the hum in the kitchen, the same recipes that have appeared on the table longer than anyone can remember. The parade plays in the background — at least until the game takes over. Someone sets the table the way Grandma did, with the mismatched serving spoons that always find their way back to the feast. The rituals return, like the seasons themselves, reassuring us that some things still know their way home — joy and tension alike, both arriving with the suitcases.
 
The Empty Chair
And then, there’s that moment when we notice what’s different. As Paul Simon writes, “everything put together sooner or later falls apart.” Impermanence isn’t an idea you ponder at a distance during the holidays; it sits right there beside us. The seat that stays empty. The voice missing from the story. The hands that once carved the turkey. Time rearranges the table, and gathering is when we feel its work most clearly.
 
We don’t talk about it much. We laugh at the same old stories, but there is always a quiet instant when the room shifts. The platter arrives, and collectively, we remember who used to carve it. Gratitude doesn’t erase the ache — it holds it gently. The memories that tug at us aren’t trying to pull us backward; they’re reminding us where love has already been.
 
Most of us carry a simpler childhood version of this day somewhere inside us — when it seemed everyone would always be together and the grown-ups would always know what to do. But adults know better. We’ve seen how quickly life reshapes a room, and how suddenly a familiar chair can become a place of memory rather than presence.
 
What We Bring to the Table
The older we get, the more Thanksgiving becomes a reunion with what — and who — has changed. We gather around the table remembering things we don’t always put into words: a diagnosis still being processed; a loss still too sharp to touch; resentments that still bring a chill to the air. We pass dishes and avoid topics. We sense the old fault lines under the table. Yet everyone showed up anyway — and that, in itself, is a quiet act of hope.
 
Some of what we carry is worry. Who is struggling financially but doesn’t want to say so. Who is caring for a spouse or parent and running on fumes. Who seems to be shrinking into themselves, smiling at all the right moments but not really present in the room. We notice the extra sigh, the distracted gaze, the way someone stays busy in the kitchen because it feels safer than being fully seen at the table.
 
And some of what we carry is history. Words spoken years ago that never quite healed. Old roles we keep slipping back into without meaning to — the peacemaker, the provoker, the one who smooths everything over. The table is set with more than plates and glasses. It holds everything we have lived through together, and some of what we have lived through apart.
 
Where We Struggle to Connect
In many families, the hardest tensions now are not about the meal at all, but about the world outside the dining room. Elections, protests, headlines, the constant pace of cable news and social media — all of it finds its way into the room, even when everyone has agreed not to “talk about politics today.” It hangs in the pauses. It shows up in the way someone changes the subject, or in the way another person’s jaw tightens at a passing comment.
 
We live in different information worlds now. One person’s trusted source is another person’s falsehood. For some families, it feels as if there are two or three different countries represented at the same table. We still share a last name, but not always a common story about what is happening beyond our front doors.
 
That can be exhausting. There is the fear that one casual remark will ignite an argument. There is the temptation to keep score — who “gets it” and who doesn’t. We may find ourselves rehearsing comebacks in our heads while smiling politely in real time. The cost of staying connected can feel high.
 
And yet, alongside all of that, something else is true: people still come. They drive long distances, juggle schedules, rearrange their lives to sit in the same room for a few hours. They bring their strong opinions and their blind spots, their hurts and their hopes. They also bring small gestures of grace that don’t make the news — an apology in the backyard, a refill of water offered without comment, a willingness to listen a little longer than last year before interrupting.
 
Maybe the invitation of this season is not to solve what divides us at one sitting — that would be too much to ask — but to stay long enough to remember that there is more to each person than the position they defend. To ask one more question about their week. To listen for the worry beneath the argument. To notice the humanity that outlasts the talking points.
 
Belonging is not a guarantee. It is something we practice in fits and starts, especially now. And Thanksgiving, for better or worse, is one of the places where we practice it most intensely.
 
Amazed by Grace
We give thanks not only for what is full and present, but for what is fragile and fleeting. Maybe what gives these moments weight is precisely the fact that they can’t last. Even the history behind this day asks something different of us now. We are learning to tell a fuller truth — one that honors the generosity and resilience of Indigenous peoples whose stories were too long pushed aside. Gratitude becomes more honest when it remembers not only what has been given, but what has been taken. We can celebrate without forgetting.
 
So we honor the ground beneath our feet — and stay awake to its story. Age has a way of changing how we see this day. We see more of the beauty, and more of the cost. We understand that gathering takes effort — that every seat filled is a small triumph against isolation, schedules, weather, and the reminder that none of us gets forever at this table.
 
Maybe that’s why the table matters so much: it gathers what the year has scattered. We show up — even carrying tension or exhaustion — because we know the alternative too well. We sit close enough to pass dishes, and for a moment we are reminded that life is something we do together. You can tell who’s paying attention by the way they offer someone the better seat, make room for a late arrival, or stay at the table with the person who seems on the edge of the conversation. Care shows up in the smallest, almost unnoticed gestures.
 
If someone at the table is especially quiet this year, we take notice. It’s astonishing how much connection can live in a look, a touch on the arm, a shared smile across the table. Holidays remind us how much we say without speaking. The table changes. But hopefully, grace will find its way back — not in grand reconciliations, but in small mercies that no one could have demanded or planned.
 
In the end, the measure of this day isn’t how well the turkey turns out, or whether every chair is filled. It’s whether we made room — in the seating, and in the heart — for what matters now. We will tell the stories again. We will call to mind the faces no longer here. We will notice who has become a little more themselves since last year and who seems a little further away. We will take a breath and look around the table, grateful for every person who chose to be here.
 
Even as the years change us, the people we love — and the people we miss — still hold us close. That’s the quiet hope at the center of Thanksgiving: not perfection, but presence. Not certainty, but belonging.
 
So we set the table. We show up. We give thanks. And we trust that love, somehow, keeps making room.