Ah, Thanksgiving! It’s my favorite holiday of all, even though in recent years we have rarely celebrated with family. Kid schedules, work responsibilities, travel hassles, limited vacation and other challenges (like pandemics) lead us to plan other kinds of time together.

It’s not quite half way on the calendar, but July is a fine time to celebrate Thanksgiving.

With thankfulness we enjoyed our last asparagus, which we stop cutting by July 4. We had a few strawberries still producing. I failed to transplant replacements into our covered beds so the chippies got most of the extras. But the ones we got — wow! Like certain flowers or birds, I find myself wondering how did the inventor even dream up this taste/color/shape/scent? Momentarily trance-inducing, the flavor, color and scent were transporting.

Just as the blueberries were starting to show color and the first raspberries ripened, we had a week with all our kids and grands. We hadn’t all been together for four years — and since then the baby has become a vocal, hearty kindergartner and there’s a new grand who is already talking like a pro. The children were entranced to find they could pick raspberries by themselves anytime they wanted.

It was truly something to gather all together around the dining table. We revived an old practice from when our kids were little — we all joined hands and sang a “thankful” song. We sang our customized version of Johnny Appleseed’s “Oh, the World is good to me and so I thank the World, for giving me the things I need ….” Or sometimes it was a song invented by a friend of a friend that starts out: “Thank you for this food, this glorious, glorious food … ”

The children loved it and the youngest stood on her chair and enthusiastically requested “more!” Sometimes she specifically requested “Happy Birthday!”

Unplanned, the visit was in the vicinity of two birthdays ( 2 and 8) and one anniversary (36) and all three numbers appeared on the cake that the kids helped bake using a recipe from my husband’s grandmother. So we did sing “Happy Birthday,” and more than once.

Twelve people require a lot of meals, and once when I cut open a red onion, I was transfixed by the beautiful pattern of red and white inside. Why is it so beautiful? I knew the tears that gathered were not just from the onion, but from the deep welling of gratitude I felt to have us all together.

All this joy and laughing and sharing and coordinating did not pull a veil over the trials all around us. Our local farmers have been hammered — some just wiped out — with the huge rains and heat; July brought terrible smoke and fires, hot-tub oceans, and more recently washouts of roads and homes. I am thankful for all the efforts by our towns and elected officials, especially Jim McGovern and Jo Comerford, to leverage significant support for those who need it right away. We have friends who face difficult health threats and neighbors who watch family members struggle with various challenges.

Our beautiful Connecticut River is threatened by the corporations pretending their pump storage is a “green” option instead of a costly and destructive operation designed to make money, not energy. I am grateful to those neighbors who are putting this issue front and center. The minute we look abroad we see war crimes and destruction — waste and trauma for the people and the planet. We see the bewildering behavior of despots unable to even protect their own interests but willing to imperil the world.

Nationally we are exhausted by the hateful gibberish of congressional members who spout conspiracy theories and indicted defendants who continue the same rhetoric and behavior that got them into trouble. I am grateful for the professional commitment of the Justice Department staff who are working to protect our Constitution and see justice done.

None of this vanishes in the warm glow of our family time. But in fact this glow illuminates the very reason we keep trying — looking for anything we can do, small or large, that might help. The needs are vast, the time is short, the lift is heavy, but we are lifting our kids, grandkids, neighbors and friends and counterparts around the world.

Not to mention the strawberries and bluebirds who sing for us so sweetly. July is done, but our gratitude is never-ending, as it must be.

Judy Wagner lives in Northfield.

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