The first three days of the fourth week of November 2017 were unremarkable. We continued working on Lynette’ sliding scale insulin with increasing success. Sarah had class on Monday and Tuesday, and was planning to come home on Wednesday. We had an invitation to join Lynette’s sisters at her sister Guyanne’s house in Iuka for Thanksgiving. We decided that the length of the trip and uncertain medical services made that unwise, so we were planning on a Thanksgiving dinner for the four of us in Harrisville.

The morning before Thanksgiving Lynette got off the phone with Sarah following an early morning meeting. Sarah was set to do her student teaching the spring semester of 2018, but she still needed a lab science to graduate. Lynette said “Guess what? Sarah is going to take Astrology!” I found this disconcerting. I wondered if standards at Millsaps had dropped precipitously in the 36 years between my graduation and that day. Of course, Sarah was going to take ASTRONOMY, not astrology.

B.B. Watson of Marvin United Methodist Church in Florence stopped by around noon to bring us a pumpkin pie he had baked. He asked Lynette what else he could do for her. She asked him to pray for her. Luke was watching all this closely. He said “I don’t go to church anymore, but I’m glad for anyone to pray for my Mama.”

That night we had a conversation/discussion about WHEN we needed to put the turkey in the roaster. I had located the full version of WKRP in Cincinnati’s “Turkeys Away” episode (the funniest Thanksgiving show ever). We were anticipating a pleasant family day.