Grief and Gratitude

A neighbor and dear friend recently suffered the loss of his beloved son, only days before Thanksgiving.

It is in bitter moments like these, I am reminded that the first Thanksgiving celebrated in the United States was rooted not only in gratitude but grief.

One hundred and two passengers sailed aboard The Mayflower, landing at Plymouth, Massachusetts in November of 1620. I live a stone’s throw from Massachusetts and November is an unforgiving month for the growth of food or warmth of the body.

Of the original one hundred and two passengers, only fifty-three would be alive after the first winter had ended.

I’m a writer, not a mathematician, however, even I can understand the ramifications of a number cut in half. This means that there wasn’t a single family left untouched by grief. Each person sitting down to the first Thanksgiving meal was grieving through their gratitude.

William Bradford was such a man. He had been a weaver before he became the longest-running governor of the Plymouth colony – elected over thirty times. In December of 1620, he went on an expedition to find the best area for the passengers to settle. Upon his return, William would learn the heart-breaking news that his wife, Dorothy, had slipped off the deck of The Mayflower and drowned in the frigid Atlantic waters. He would remarry and have three children by his wife Alice.

Susanna Jackson was a passenger also touched by grief. Mother to a five-year-old son and pregnant with her second child during the Mayflower voyage, she gave birth while the ship was harbored in Massachusetts. The first baby of the New World would be a boy named Peregrine. Susanna’s husband, William, would not live to see his sons grow up. The harsh winter claimed him. Susannah would remarry – the first marriage of the New World. She married fellow passenger Edward Winslow, himself widowed over the winter. They would go on to have five children together.

I would think it would be incredibly difficult to be thankful when the Pilgrims had lost so many people they loved, but they had had a decade before their season of grief to practice the holiday we celebrate today.

Before the Pilgrims left England upon The Mayflower, they had spent a decade in Leiden, a city in the Netherlands. They only returned to their native England when they noticed their children were taking on Dutch qualities instead of English. Their Thanksgiving ceremony probably took root in Leiden.

“In 1574, in a climactic end to the 80-year war for Dutch independence, the starving city of Leiden triumphed after a long siege under Spanish forces. The annual Thanksgiving festival, held every October in commemoration, is an event the Pilgrims would have witnessed during their decade in Leiden. The festival lasted for days, starting with a prayer, followed by a meal, and then militia exercises and festivities. When the Plymouth Pilgrims decided to hold Thanksgiving in 1621, Bangs thinks they looked, at least in part, to the Leiden festival. “They thought the Dutch had it right,” Bangs says. “The Pilgrims also found in Deuteronomy the description of how to hold a harvest thanksgiving,” he adds, “which included inviting all the “strangers” living within one’s boundaries. This would account for inviting the Indians.”   John Hanc, Smithsonian Magazine

Here are the instructions for the Harvest Festival referenced in Deuteronomy that the Pilgrims would have followed.

Deuteronomy 16, v. 10-12

“…and then celebrate the Harvest Festival, to honor the Lord your God, by bringing him a freewill offering in proportion to the blessing he has given you. 

 Be joyful in the Lord’s presence, together with your children, your servants, and the Levites, foreigners, orphans, and widows who live in your towns. Do this at the one place of worship. 

 Be sure that you obey these commands; do not forget that you were slaves in Egypt.”

A key piece of instruction – “Be joyful in the Lord’s presence.”

Even though the Pilgrims felt the loss of their loved ones keenly – they knew that the Lord was present at the festival.  Jesus was seated at the harvest table. He sat among the orphans and the widows, the brokenhearted.

The same Jesus who sits at our harvest dinner is the same loving Savior who said, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” Matthew 5:4.

My dear friend’s son was raised by a direct descendant of William Bradford. My family is descended from Susannah Jackson. Twelve generations and four hundred years later, God arranged for us to be neighbors and friends. He knit together our hearts in grief and gratitude for another sorrowful November.

But we can be joyful knowing the Lord Jesus who comforts those who mourn is present at our harvest table, this year and always.

In loving memory of Joseph Alizio, Jr.