Until this year, I have never been a guest at someone else’s Thanksgiving meal. (I’ll pause for a moment so you can marvel.) Even when I lived in Texas, I made it home for all the holidays. I’m starting to appreciate how rare that is and how unlikely it is for me from now on.

I was married to a man who was estranged from his family, so that meant my family got us for every holiday, every special occasion, every long weekend, every summer vacation. Glorious as that was for me when my little family was intact, it’s made every holiday and family gathering bittersweet since my husband left. Even though my parents and sisters have bent over backwards helping me make new memories, for whatever reason, as this Thanksgiving drew near, my kids and I just couldn’t get our grateful on. Then my unicorn casually tossed out an invitation to eat Thanksgiving dinner with his family and I decided it might help me to try something different.

I could hear my mother’s heart break, just a little, when I told my parents we wouldn’t be joining them for turkey day. We’ll be home for Christmas, I promised, and then tried to explain what even I wasn’t convinced would happen – all the ways a completely different Thanksgiving experience could help me.

I made plans to accompany my Englishman to his family gathering and informed my sweet, introverted teenagers that while they were off the hook for that experience, they had to help me make the menu (and the meal) for our new party-of-three Thanksgiving dinner, to be served the day after Thanksgiving. They chose steak and potatoes, and didn’t fight me too hard when I told them I’d include “something new” (and probably green), along with baked apples, crescent rolls and cupcakes. I shopped. I teased them we’d watch the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special, like when they were little. I actually started looking forward to the holiday and I think they did, too.

Then my youngest started complaining of a sore throat.

I’ve told more than one person this week, there is nothing more wretched than a 14-year-old boy when he’s sick, which makes it doubly hard to tell what’s a common cold and what’s worth worrying about. But, by Thanksgiving night, he spiked a fever of 103.8. He wouldn’t eat. He couldn’t sleep. And he developed a cough that his older brother said hurt his throat just to hear it.

I’ll spare you the gory details and fast forward EIGHT DAYS, when a chest x-ray revealed he has pneumonia – a secondary complication of the flu-like virus that refused to be named and has yet to be tamed. And, with that, any ground I gained from my “This year’s going to be different!” Thanksgiving project was eclipsed by the woes of single motherhood.

No, there’s not a lot a second parent can do that I wasn’t already doing, but man, it would’ve been nice to tag out for an hour or worry out loud, with my head on someone’s shoulder; to have someone else listening intently, while attempting to sleep, in case our kid called out for us. Plus, there’s something extra hard about having a sick child on a holiday, when doctor’s offices are closed and morning feels a million miles away.

Then it hit me. The very first time my youngest was sick was on Thanksgiving Day.

We were at my parents’ house, in their very small town, when he started running a fever. It didn’t seem like much at first, but he was only two and once he started clutching his ear and crying, he didn’t stop. Nothing was open and, even if it was, they had no walk-in-doctor’s office. I tried treating his symptoms with over-the-counter remedies, home remedies, suggestions from old wives’ tales, anything, hoping we could make it ’til morning and drive home to see his pediatrician. But, just like this week, it was only a matter of hours between “I wonder if he’s sick?” and “I have to do something.” So my parents pointed me to the emergency room in the nearest “large” town (population 15,000).

I remember looking over at my husband, when I made the decision to take our son to the ER, and seeing him grin and shrug at me. You see, while I was parenting, he’d been drinking all day – “It’s a holiday!” – and he was in no condition to accompany me, so my little sister became my co-parent and off we went.

That’s a long story and this is a much longer post than I intended to write. But, it’s been a long week and, apparently, taken a long time for me to accept that I have always been a single parent. Even now, after the Commonwealth of Kentucky imposed “joint custody” (don’t get me started), he finds new ways to remind me it’s all up to me, as his mail comes back “return to sender, address unknown” and his unpaid bills get forwarded to his last known address (mine). He’s off finding himself and I’m helping our oldest find his first job. He’s “living his truth” (vomit) and I’m taking our youngest for chest x-rays. He’s chasing his youth and I’m teaching our boys how to adult.

Yeah, this Thanksgiving was eerily similar to a lot of the Thanksgivings (and Christmases and Thursdays) when I was married, except for one very important difference: I wasn’t disappointed. I’ve got this. I leaned on my own shoulder (although now I could use a visit to my chiropractor). I let my oldest help run errands. I admitted to my employer that I couldn’t do it all and was shown infinite grace (and given time off without question). And I showed my youngest a single parent can do all of this, and then some, the same as all my other Thanksgivings.