The Thanksgiving lesson

Turkey time is here again. One year I didn't have turkey to eat on Thanksgiving, well my family did, but I didn't, I had hamburger.
It was November of 1945 and the war was over. My brothers had returned from Iwo Jima and Europe with just one flesh wound that would heal in time, but with wounds to their souls that would last a life time. No matter, we knew that we were a family that should give thanks that there were no empty chairs at our table.
My hamburger patty Thanksgiving began in September that year. I, a seven-year-old city girl, who had traveled to a small Montana town to participate in a turkey shoot, had somehow won the children's division. My prize was a goose. A beautiful, live, white goose!
I put the goose in a cage that Daddy found and started a club in my playhouse called The White Goose club. My little friends came to the weekly meeting and after waving a white hankie in the manner of surrender I let them enter. We sang to the stars and stripes and drew pictures of the enemy, Germans and Japs, getting killed and hung those on the walls. Everyone got to feed the white "bird of peace" before the meeting ended.
On Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, my friends and I happily ran from the school yard in anticipation of a four day holiday which was also the beginning of the Christmas season.
I was suprised to see the door to the playhouse open and when I went to shut it I discovered my goose was gone! I ran to the house crying, "Mother, Mother, something happened and my goose is gone."
Mother squatted down to my level and put her hands on my shoulder. "Carol, I took your goose to the butcher. He will be our Thanksgiving bird this year."
I couldn't believe what she was saying. I ran from her and threw myself across my bed sobbing. Mother tried to get me to understand that we couldn't keep a goose in the city and she added, "Carol, the war is over. It isn't right for you and your friends to be drawing pictures filled with hate. I think you should be proud that you brought home the bird for our celebration that is really about peace and Thanksgiving."
The next day when my mother carried the heavy platter with the golden goose to the table I cried a little bit more and ate the hamburger that my sister cooked for me.
Of course, I got over the anger and forgave my mother, but the story about the year that Mother "cooked my goose" became a Thanksgiving legend in our family.
If you don't have a turkey spread your fingers on a piece of paper and draw around them with a brown crayon. Then color the fingers with green, blue, orange and yellow. Draw a red waddle to put on the thumb and you have a turkey!
Sometimes what we need is right in our own hands. If you are hearing impaired you can talk with your fingers and if you are visually impaired you can even read with your fingers. If you are lonely, line up your fingers and offer a handshake to someone. Put all ten fingers together in the shape of a tent and reach out to your maker.