the long and winding road

November 2039 - John Lowell is 69, Anne and James Smith are 39, George is 15, John and Tom are 11, Jamie is 8, Alex is 6.

This is the first Thanksgiving since Anne's mother Elizabeth died, and for the first time Anne is cooking Thanksgiving dinner at her house.

She and James have been getting the house ready for days. Anne made sure all of the bathrooms are clean, and James gets up early to finish raking the leaves.

The kids make sure their rooms and bathroom are picked up, but then they run off to entertain themselves while Anne gets dinner ready. John has been teaching his little brother Alex to play chess.

Tom and Jamie aren't interested in chess. They prefer to play outside on the jungle gym.

John comes over around 4 PM. It's still strange for Anne to see him without her mother. She's been trying to spend lots of time with him now that he's living alone.

Alex is tired of losing to his big brother, so John plays with his grandfather.

The others gather in the family room to watch the football game.

This is the first time Anne has made Thanksgiving dinner alone. She started helping her mother make Thanksgiving dinner when she was twelve, and she has all of her mother's recipes memorized.

It's weird to be making her mother's recipes without her mother in the kitchen. She can almost hear her mother as she chops the celery and onions for stuffing. Thanksgiving was a time when they could talk all day, just the two of them, while the husbands and children entertained themselves.

She's nervous about the food this year, but the turkey turns out perfect.

The dinner is a big success. Thanksgiving is a lot of work for Anne, especially now that she's doing all of the cooking alone, but it's still her favorite holiday.

*****

Anne has been going over to her father's house about once a month to help him go through her mother's things. It's taken them months to sort through all of her clothes and jewelry. Now they're starting to go through the photographs and her mother's scrapbooks.

"Would you like some of these photographs?" John asks.

"I don't want to take them from you, Dad."

"I want you to have them. Your mother put photographs of you kids all over the house. You should have some of them."

He also gives Anne the deed to a vacation home in Three Lakes. "Your mother and I bought it a few years ago. It's very beautiful up there."

"Thank you Dad, for everything."

After Anne leaves, John goes on his nightly walk to the cemetary. His wife and son are buried with the rest of their family, surrounded by the Cabots and Lowells who founded the college and this town. It's lonely, living in the big house by himself, but he still has his daughter and son-in-law, and five grandchildren, just a few blocks away. In a few years, George will be living on campus at Lowell College, and a few years after that his brothers and sister will follow. It's reassuring to know that even after he's gone, the Lowell family will still be here in Providence.