11/23/06

Thankful for Friends, Family & ... Readers

With family at Easter this Spring.

I never know what to post on Thanksgiving because 1) the holiday has lots of detractors and 2) i did not grow up celebrating it inmy native Haiti. One caveat though is that in my near 15 years of living in the US, I have never met a person, however critical of the holiday, who did not actually spend valued time with friends and/or family during it.

Today I received a text message from my friend Sarah, a neighbor I turn too when I miss speaking and laughing in our native Creole, that summarizes my sentiments perfectly. From a train station in Pennsylvania where she was waiting to be picked up by her brother, she managed to tap onto her mobile the following words:

"I know this holiday is extremely problematic...even so, i want y'all to know how special you are to me & how thankful i am to have you in my life."

I say the same to you my readers from the bottom of my heart.

I will also share the musings of my other friend Jennifer on this day. Jennifer, who is of irish/african/native american descent via Virginia and the Bahamas, blogged for the first time in a while today, reminiscing on her late mother, love and the importance of genealogy in understanding family. Specifically, she advances a theory that her beau, a New Orleans Creole, may have an usually cohesive family precisely because of that French connection. Very interesting.




I am about to go spend time with her and my own family. In the Haitian meaning of the word, that means I am about to see not just siblings and parents but really, cousins, nephews and most importantly friends who have become family. I don't know if French ancestry or a French colonial past have anything to do with it but somehow indeed "lafanmi" as I define it rather broadly is very important -- and when you think of the money transfers that take place every day from the US to Haiti between family members, you can even say vital -- to most Haitians. In that sense, I can only imagine that Thanksgiving is as important as any holiday to most Haitian-Americans.

As I eat turkey and yummy cranberry sauce alongside pommes de terre au gratin, tarte a l'oignon, souffle de mais and griot and bannan peze later on, you'll be in my thoughts.

If you are in the US, have a great Thanksgiving. If you are elsewhere, please receive my sincere thank you for reading me.


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1 comment:

Casey Galatos said...

With Thanksgiving we've started off our holiday celebrations...and there's more fun and froluic to follow...this is the time to hang out with friends and just enjoy...and hey also drop by my Holiday Blog sometime and share some of the holiday fun and joy....have a great time this hoiday season!!!!