The Thanksgiving Day after my mother died, I sat at the table with a dozen of my closest family members. The youngest was my 22-year-old godson on his way to Iraq with the Marines. The eldest was my 91-year-old Aunt Vera, the last of my mother’s four siblings to still be living.
Everyone was worried about our Sean being wounded or killed. That was “the elephant in the room.” Aunt Vera was still living alone but showing signs of dementia and frailty, another “elephant in the room.”