By Randi Kreiss
In November 2020, in the maw of the pandemic, I wrote a column about Thanksgiving dinner with my husband, dinner for just two. Our kids and grandkids and friends were isolating, in hiding from a novel viral enemy.
Looking for a historical precedent, I compared the fear crisscrossing America to what it must have felt like in Berlin after World War II, when Stalin’s troops cut off the city. The plan was to choke the Berliners into capitulation to Russia.
On the ground, it looked hopeless and inevitable. Then, in an audacious counter-move, the United States launched the Berlin airlift, and for 15 months planes dropped food, medicine and fuel — 2 million tons of supplies — until Stalin blinked in 1949 and lifted the blockade. We didn’t know it would succeed when we began. We did it because it was what was needed to save Berlin from Stalin’s tyranny.
I was inspired by this bit of history because it speaks to America’s ability to meet the moment. Ingenuity and courage are homegrown assets, and we never needed these strengths more than we did during the pandemic, more than we do now.
In that Thanksgiving 2020 column, I wrote, “Our new enemy is Covid-19, which is rampaging through our cities and states, killing people in increasing numbers and threatening our well-being and our prosperity. We need to summon the courage to win this war . . .
“We have missed the chance to get ahead of the firestorm, but we still have agency. Don’t gather at parties or bars or family events. It won’t be forever, and it might save someone you love . . .
“This Thanksgiving we must accept the sacrifice of a simpler holiday, without expecting family to board planes or sit around a table for 15 or 20. We can do this. We can do it this year, in the hope that next year we can be thankful for lives saved.”
One year later, the world had turned. I wrote, “All of us have had our Covid vaccines and boosters; we are brought back to normal by the moonshot of modern medicine, the development of an effective vaccine in 18 months . . .
“Today we are back to our jobs. Kids are back in school. This Thanksgiving we will sit down with our family to start reweaving the ties that have stretched thin over the months of this pandemic . . .
“I have often written about gratitude for the small things that charge our days with interest and pleasure. This year my gratitude is singular, profound and unending. I am so thankful to the researchers and scientists and companies and governments and leaders who took on Covid-19 and dug in for the fight . . .
“I thank everyone who brought us to this day, from the doctors and nurses to the supermarket workers to the teachers and parents of young children, to the bench researchers who put in the hours, day after day and month after month . . .
“This year at our Thanksgiving there will be a too-big turkey and stuffing and cranberry sauce. Leaves and grains for the vegetarian. We will hug and kiss our kids and grandkids, feeling safe enough with our jabs and boosters. Then we will feast on my apple cranberry crumble with a topping of gratitude for this country and countries everywhere where scientists are educated, supported and honored because the work they do alleviates suffering and perpetuates life on earth.”
This week, as we approach Thanksgiving 2025, it is, quite unbelievably, our very democracy that is under threat. We are in a season of political instability, irrational attacks on our institutions, and a drift toward authoritarianism. As we witness the trampling of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, the military occupation of our cities and the willingness to sacrifice American laws and values for personal gain and power, we know that this threat, too, has gone viral.
And, irony of ironies, our government leaders are questioning the efficacy of the original lifesaving Covid-19 vaccine and all the life-saving vaccines that have kept us and our children alive.
When we sit down to Thanksgiving dinner this year, my prayer will be for America to find its footing, to support leaders who will launch a political moonshot or Berlin Airlift to save our souls and our country.
Copyright 2025 Randi Kreiss. Randi can be reached at randik3@aol.com.
