Are you hosting Thanksgiving this year?
People praying before Thanksgiving dinner.
In August a few years ago, a friend's 20-year-old son asked if I was hosting Thanksgiving. Due to the vagaries of the child support system, the dad concealed his entire income, leaving the family struggling to survive on low-wage employment.
He and his mom had joined us in prior years, but his previous Thanksgiving was meager without a holiday vibe, much less turkey and stuffing. He longed for a traditional Thanksgiving with the works: happy people celebrating together, and taking leftovers home. I wasn't interested in hosting that year, but did it anyway.
Years earlier, a young guy in my building was starting to make a life for himself. Judging by his waif-like quality and remarks about his parents' haphazard parenting, I realized he was on his own with insufficient grounding to create a comfortable life.
He asked if I knew where he could get buttons sewn on his overcoat. Knowing that a tailor would be expensive, I offered to do it. It was a little project; the buttons cost about $10. In gratitude, he treated for dinner at a vegan carry-out restaurant.
My mom died when I was 17, leaving my dad even more emotionally unavailable. When I was 19, I moved to Chicago independently and lived at the YWCA at Oak and Dearborn until a couple of college friends and I rented a 1-bedroom apartment.
I was so lonely and adrift that I searched the phone book for people from my hometown who knew and admired my parents. Phone books were smaller in 1970, so I located them easily enough and maybe even made contact, but nothing ever came of it.
From personal experience, I know how important families are and how lonely and vulnerable I feel without that bulwark of support. My desire for a family was compelling enough that I married Mr. Wrong not once but twice and neither had a family worthy of the name.
Feeling very alone, I dated and married a cute Jewish guy when I was barely 22. Subconsciously assuming that Jews have strong families, I joined his, unaware of the extent of their dysfunction.
The substitute family i searched for never materialized but I was always on the hunt for a family that would welcome me into their fold.
One gloomy Sunday afternoon underscored my loneliness when I took my dog for a canine sniff test at a friend's house in the Beverly neighborhood. She was cooking Sunday dinner – pork roast with vegetables – producing a homey, fragrant atmosphere. To this day, I wish she had the consciousness to invite me to stay for dinner.
These vignettes illustrate my longing for a family and my recognition of it in others. Sometimes, even a quasi-family would be better than none.
My search for a substitute family informs my passion for housing and sociability. I want to attract professional women to form a woman-owned LLC to develop real estate that tackles housing and sociability. I envision us developing homes for group living. For hospitality, purchase a storefront and recruit food service professionals to form a co-op diner, sufficiently staffed to be open from breakfast through dinner. I would love to see a separate room for classes or workshops and a dance floor for live or DJ music a couple of times a month.
This template would work anywhere in the country, and we need it everywhere. My new dream job is an itinerant community consultant working with social service agencies and real estate developers anywhere in the country.
