Thanksgiving

Uncle Jack

My mother’s Uncle Jack, her estranged mother’s brother, would show up out of the blue for a few Thanksgivings back in the 1960s when I was still in grade school. He seems old, frail, balding with thinning wispy white hair, skinny, wearing thick black glasses a decade out of fashion, and a dull faded gray sweater. Perpetually smoking a cigarette—his right hand trembling as he lifts one to his mouth, compulsively sucking-in clouds of powdery gray. Mom is a heavy smoker too. The smoke wafting in the dining room surrounds us all like a poison fog, slinking through us like our black cat named Lucky who observed us at the dinner table from her secret hiding place. “Bless us, O Lord, for these and all thy gifts for which we are about to receive…”