My kids and I are going to my hometown in Nebraska for Thanksgiving.  It's about an eight hour drive, which means a weekend isn't enough time to drop in, so in recent years I've only been back once or twice a year.   Since my girls are 24 and 20 and busy with their lives,  the ride can be a time for catching up.  (Although on previous trips the youngest has been known to sleep much of the way.)

Besides my dad, four of six siblings, three in-laws and four nieces and nephews, (niblings, in our family vernacular)  will be present.  My brother says five niblings,  because he counts his dog, but I don't go along with including four-legged children, however cute they may be. I do include my brother's partner as an in-law, and so does my NRA member Dad.  That's one of the things I'm thankful for -- that John, my brother's partner of 20 years, is accepted as part of our family.  

It wasn't always this way. For awhile a couple of us knew Doug's "secret" and others didn't, so during conversations it was necessary to remember who knew and who didn't so what could be said to whom.  It was exhausting. The intrigue increased when my youngest sister, Nadia,  found out and couldn't say anything because she didn't want to let on that she found out by reading our other sister's diary. 

Nadia inadvertantly outed my brother when she wrote an essay for a high school religion class that mentioned a "gay relative."  Mom read the essay and asked her who it was and Nadia wasn't a good liar.  Mom and Dad (good Catholics, in case the seven kids didn't give it away) adapted and accepted after an adjustment period.  So did my grandparents. When Grandma's 80th birthday was being planned at a hotel (Grandpa and Grandma had 14 children and 64 grandchildren, so it was the only place that could hold everybody) and one of my aunts asked what my uncles might say about John coming to the party with Doug, my grandma's answer was, "It's my party and I like John and I want him to be there."  My uncles behaved themselves they continue to behave graciously to my brother and his partner and others among my family who have come out since.

There was a good-natured rivaly among some of my brother-in-laws about which of them was Mom's favorite, and the consensus was usually  that John held the title. He was good to Mom, and at her funeral he was in the front pew with other family members. If it had been the bad old days of Doug's having "a secret" and John being an unknown, Doug would have had to go through the shock of Mom's sudden death and the funeral without the support of his long-time partner. 

My daughters  are city kids have pretty much always known that they have an uncle who's gay.  My country brother and his wife didn't tell their kids early on, probably because it's more of a taboo in rural Nebraska and they didn't want their kids to have to answer their friends' questions or be teased.  John is an excellent cook and a great sport about cooking for 20 or so of us when we show up at their house in Omaha from time to time.  On one of those occasions, my niece Clare asked Doug if John was his servant. John found this  more amusing  than Doug did. 

One year at Christmas time Doug and John extended an invitation to the family to come for Christmas thinking that at most a couple siblings would take them up on it.  We all did -- all 21 of us.   (They haven't offered to host since.)  John hasn't been around small children much. One morning he walked  into the kitchen where our niece, Maia, was sitting on the floor. She wasn't quite walking by herself yet, but she grabbed John's fingers and took off, with John holding on and following, calling over his shoulder, "Is this okay? Where is she taking me?" We just laughed.

There will be more laughs and stories this year when several of us, including Doug and John,  gather at the ranch.  My sister-in-law is one of the best cooks I know.  My niece who questioned whether John was a servant is a senior in high school.  Dad seems to be in great health at 76, but one of my best friends' just lost her dad who wasn't much older very suddenly, so I know I can't take for granted that he'll always be there to visit.  That my family can be be to together to give thanks for the many ways we're blessed is high on my list of what I'm thankful for.