One of the best Thanksgivings of my life

This is the story of how my emptiest Thanksgiving turned out to be my fullest.

The year was 1998. I was a senior at Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas.

That year, as always, my dad and mom hosted a big Thanksgiving celebration at their home in Ashland, Ohio.

In the Irwin family, “Thanksgiving” means “full.” To this day, my parents fill their home with family and friends. A place is set at every square inch of the table. Mom starts every Thanksgiving Day by serving a huge family breakfast at the table. Around 10 o'clock in the morning, she lays out a “goodie table” that stays in the living room all day. Around 3 o'clock, Mom serves a gigantic Thanksgiving feast followed by pecan and pumpkin pie. Leftovers come back out in time for the Irwin family’s Thanksgiving evening tradition: Watching ‘Home Alone’ (with “Mystery Science Theater 3000”-style commentary from my two sisters).

But I missed all of that in 1998.

That year, I was earning my spending money working as a DJ at KWCK 99.9 FM in Searcy. Among the on-air talent at the station, I had the lowest seniority. That meant I had to work Thanksgiving Day.

So I stayed alone in my apartment in Arkansas while everyone else in my family gathered home in Ohio.

I spent almost all of Thanksgiving Day working at the radio station. The part-time guy we paid to push buttons overnight called in sick, so I went to work at 11 p.m. the night before Thanksgiving. I stayed alone and on air at the station until 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day.

When I finally left the station and started walking back to my apartment on campus, the streets were dark and empty. I knew that, back home in Ohio, my family was breaking out the leftovers and gathering to watch ‘Home Alone’ together. I felt like I was in the scene where Kevin watches families gather to celebrate in their homes while he walks home alone in the cold.

I walked through the eerie silence of campus and on out into a big field next to the football stadium. Out in that field, the night was still. No lights. No people. No sound of traffic. Just me, alone with my breath.

Years later, my wife gave me words for what I felt then and there. A designer of museum exhibits, she taught me about “negative space.”

Negative space is the empty space around and between subjects of an image. An example of negative space is right in front of you. Just look at the white space between paragraphs in this blog post. This negative space draws your eye to how I am trying to organize my writing to focus your attention on certain thoughts. I’m about to use negative space now. Here it is…

That Thanksgiving night, alone in the middle of that Arkansas field, I felt like I was lost in negative space. Everyone else in the world seemed like they were gathering in the light and warmth of “positive space.” Did any of them know I was out there by myself in the middle of a field?

Then I looked up.

And, oh! The stars!

It looked like some great hand cranked the Milky Way down until it was hanging just above the treetops.

I could hear and see the angel chorus that came with the stars to announce the birth of the Christ. They appeared to lonely men in a lonely field just like the one in which I stood that night.

In an instant, negative space showed itself to be full of positivity.

I didn’t hear a voice, but I felt a feeling coming to me from Someone among the stars: “You are never alone. Just keep looking up.”

Most of my Thanksgiving memories are all pretty much the same. Same food. Same people. Same traditions. That’s not to say that I’m bored with those memories. No. All of those memories form one happy and precious keepsake for my mind.

But the Thanksgiving that means the most to me and stands out in my memory is the one I spent in “negative space.”

I never felt more blessed, more full, and more loved than I did on that Thanksgiving night. When I could not be with everyone I loved, I somehow felt that love so much stronger.

It turns out that giving thanks is so much deeper and sweeter when it happens in “negative space.”

And only in “negative space” do we find the constance, fullness, and sureness of true love. Love that does not need to be present to hold close. Love that does not need the five senses to make itself felt and known and real. Only in “negative space” do we have enough room and enough stillness to hear what Someone is saying to us from among the stars.

You can shake your fist at the pandemic Thanksgiving and curse it for what it seems to be taking from you.

But my personal experience teaches me that something else is happening here. This may end up being one of the best Thanksgiving holidays of our lives. Not for how much we stuff into it, but by how free and still we may be to listen to the stars for a little while.

The stars will tell you: A pandemic can take away the traditions and trappings, but it cannot take away love. You are never alone.

Just keep looking up.

And give thanks.

Grace and peace.