NOVEMBER 26 • 2020 | 27 wishes from friends and family, viewed over and over and over again. We held a group fami- ly-game night and were able to hear our 6-year-old grandson read to us through FaceTime, while we followed along with an online version of the same book. Trivially, I am grateful that the closing of area gyms allowed me to shop for shoes — albeit walking shoes — for the first time in six months so I could take my exercise regime outside where another perk has been to meet new neighbors and their seemingly unendingly multiply- ing brood of dogs. I am gladdened to know our niece is teaching herself to play violin and another has turned her furniture building talent into an actual business. I am heartened at the thought of several of our friends’ adult expat children moving home when their cities shut down and their jobs shifted to online, one of whom delivered a Michigan- born baby during the pandem- ic. I am grateful for online religious connections through synagogues, webinars and inspi- rational articles about coping and survival; and for being able to attend our kids’ summer sports games and for the guy referred to as the “sergeant at arms, ” who walked among the players and fans offering masks and separating the groups with his 6-foot-pole. I am thankful for the incen- tive of my parents to get up each day, get dressed, make the bed and do something orga- nized and constructive. I am both thankful and baffled by the sheer excitement of leaving the house to do anything from Kroger pickup to Yad Ezra vol- unteer deliveries. TIME TO BOND Less scheduling brings more time for connecting. Our kids created a family WhatsApp group through which we can all participate, and in the absence of fall youth sports and play dates, Grandma and Papa joyfully have become a regular after-school activity through FaceTime, Google Hangouts and Facebook’ s Kids Messenger. I am grateful for newfound time with just me, with my hus- band and with our local chil- dren and my mom and dad, all of whom we see only when the weather permits outdoor meet- ings. The visits have allowed for one-on-one talks with the kids and treasured stories from my parents — like hearing how my soft-spoken, learned rab- bi-grandfather enjoyed watch- ing boxing matches through a storefront bar window in the 1930s, and sorting through their old photos and memorabilia, including an envelope my dad tried to gift me that held a curl from my first haircut. Locally, I am grateful to have witnessed our great- niece become a bat mitzvah in Temple Israel’ s outdoor sanctu- ary and to dance the hora at the lakefront wedding of our niece and nephew, in a circle of guests each connected by a 6-foot-long crocheted, fabric chain. I am immensely thankful for vicarious memories of our grandson’ s bar mitzvah that travel and health concerns prevented us from attending in New Jersey this past summer. I am beyond appreciative for the week’ s worth of photos and stories and the videos of a balloon-filled, musical, drive-by party and the recorded surprise arrival of our Michigan daugh- ter and her children as the only out-of-town bar mitzvah guests. I am grateful to have participat- ed in a four-generation Zoom celebration and for the minds- eye visual of a young man being called to the Torah between a swing set and a vegetable gar- den in a decorated backyard, makeshift synagogue. Right about now, my internal clock may not know what day it is, but it knows it’ s time to pre- pare for Thanksgiving — in its new and unprecedented form. We won’ t be inflating air mat- tresses and digging out the fold- ing chairs and remote-control battery-operated “looks like the real thing but safe for kids” can- dles. But we will still unpack the ceramic pilgrim salt and pepper shakers and kid-constructed, feathered-turkey decorations from years’ past. We will set our smallest table, with its lap- top-centerpiece angled to view the tables of our far-distanced family, who will do the same. Today I am grateful that I have something meaningful to look forward to and to laugh at, as my kids try to figure out my “some of the directions and measurements are in my head” recipes, send funny Thanksgiving memes and respond to the picture I took of an actual live turkey perched in a shopping cart at my corner Kroger. This is not the Thanksgiving any of us expected, but it’ s the one that will make forev- er-memories. Someday we’ ll say, “Remember the year when we all had Thanksgiving dinner apart — but together?” I’ ll deeply miss our in-per- son gathering this year, but I know the hugs aren’ t nearly as important as the people who bring them. And for every sin- gle one of them, who I hope to be hugging soon, I am the most grateful. “THIS IS NOT THE THANKSGIVING ANY OF US EXPECTED, BUT IT’S THE ONE THAT WILL MAKE FOREVER-MEMORIES. SOMEDAY WE’LL SAY, ‘REMEMBER THE YEAR WHEN WE ALL HAD THANKSGIVING DINNER APART — BUT TOGETHER?’” — SHELLI LIEBMAN DORFMAN Jake and Ari Schon of West Bloomfield/Huntington Woods, Zevi Beneson of Passaic, N.J. and Noam Dorfman of Boca Raton, Fla., ready for the Thanksgiving Day Lions game in 2015.