Many years ago, I had seventeen people at my table on Thanksgiving Day.

The guest list included local friends as well as family from afar. I spent a whole month preparing. I rented chairs, bought an extension table, bleached my tablecloth, and planned to decorate each table setting with coordinating napkins and ornamental place card holders. I leafed through magazines and considered dozens of recipes.

My husband reminded me that I was hosting a single meal and not a wedding. He watched as I ran in and out the door that month, my hands full of shopping bags and coupons; tins full of peppermint bark; sacks full of flour and sugar. I think he worried for my mental health when I stayed up one night painting names on orange glass ornaments that I planned to set on top of the water glasses.

I was driven to have the sort of Thanksgiving Day that a Pilgrim would be proud of. I wanted my friends and family to walk into the dining room with their mouths agape and declare my table to be a thing of beauty. I wanted them to enjoy the day because I loved them.

You’re probably thinking I am going to tell you a story of disaster: that the turkey was dry, or the dog ate the gravy, or the stove started on fire. We all love those stories where someone is striving for perfection, and invariably they learn that there is no such thing when something disastrous happens. But I have no such story for you; it was a perfect day.

And now, just three years later, I want to let you know that if I could do it all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing. It was worth all the work and worry and the running and the spending and the hours of planning for a single meal. And here is why: three years have passed since that wonderful day and several of my guests are no longer here on this earth to enjoy another Thanksgiving meal.

My mother passed away more than a year ago now. She was apt to show up at the table donning a Pilgrim costume she bought from Amazon. She always brought her shrimp dip, and more often than not, sat entertaining her grandchildren, holding court at a table or on a couch somewhere. We will miss her at the table. We will especially miss the laughter she brought and the strong foundation of history and levity she lent to our gatherings. Matriarchs are special people. They carry the stories of your family in their hearts and they offer continuity to our narratives as a tribe.

My cousin passed away some time ago at just 33 years-old, and this year, she will not come through the door with her bubbly stride, holding a plate of stuffed shrimp and a bottle of chilled white wine. We will miss her too.

And a cherished family friend has also passed–a woman of great creativity and flare. And many others now, have gone to that other place–people who roasted turkeys for us when we were kids, made real whipped cream, always presented a pumpkin pie at the end of the meal.

As I was serving the turkey the day of my own celebrated dinner, I had the sort of rosy glow that reinforced my belief that life is ultimately fair, and that the people I love will always be here and that there will always be another Thanksgiving.

This year, look around your table and be thankful. Be thankful for each and every person who has made their way to your home with their vegetable plates and their pumpkin pies in hand. Hug them tight as they scurry in from the cold.

We have a Thanksgiving tradition at my house: Everyone writes down what they are thankful for on a piece of paper and its read out loud during the meal. On that day, my mother wrote how thankful she was for all of the people at the table, and for all the relationships she had tended to in her lifetime.

I will bring her attitude of gratefulness to our table this year. And I vow to give the day all the joy and the passion it deserves.