This time of year, it's easy to get distracted by the commotion of the holidays. The cold front has come in, stores are continuously playing Christmas carols and every other commercial is centered on preparing the perfect Thanksgiving dinner. Yet there is still a small part of your brain that can't stop thinking about the certain people that won't be around for Thanksgiving this year. A lot of us have experienced loss this past year, whether it be the loss of a grandparent, a parent, a sibling, a relative, a friend, or even a pet. For me, I'll be missing two grandfathers and a sister. We carry this loss with us every day, yet during this holiday season, we carry it with a little more weight.

To my loved ones in heaven,

There aren't any words to express what your absence will feel like this year. I miss you every day but around the holidays your silence is deafening. With all of our family in one room together, it becomes clear when something is missing. A joke will be made and my ears will automatically listen for your laugh. Arguments will start and I'll wait for your input. When you were here, your voice was another one of many in the crowd that we call family. But now that you're gone it's as if all of those voices in our family can no longer harmonize.

The table will have less place settings and it will be weird to try to accommodate the extra space. We won't get to hear those infamous stories of yours. The stories that we had heard a thousand times, but that we still looked forward to every year. Your snarky and sarcastic comments will be listened for but lost in the wind, and there will be extra pieces of your favorite pie that won't get eaten.

We'll have to pick names for the gift exchange and we won't need as many slips of paper to fill out for the draw. We'll need to recruit new players for our annual card games after dinner; the games we only initiated so that we wouldn't have to help with the dishes. We'll have to pick new teams and go over the rules again.

Younger cousins will come up to me and tell me that you're not here because you're in heaven now, and I'll nod and agree. I'll be envious of their understanding of what heaven is, because they discuss it with such ease and casualness. I don't think they've realized it's a permanent location; that once you arrive, you don't get to leave.

Many pictures will be taken all throughout the day. While some may be posed and some not, all of them will feel unbalanced without your smiling face. We'll remember when we tried to take pictures of you while deep in conversation and you'd put your hand up to the camera. We'll remember when you'd had one too many cookies and stuck your tongue out in every photo. We'll remember when it was time to take group photos and you'd insist on being front and center for every single one.

All in all, thanksgiving will be full of differences from the time we wake up to the time we go to sleep. But your absence will only be filled by the laughter and smiles that happen automatically once we're around family. We'll stand a little closer in photos, and we'll eat the extra piece of pie in your honor. We'll talk about what you would say in certain conversations and what your favorite Thanksgiving dish was. We'll tell your stories and tell new ones as well. Our Thanksgiving toast will be a little longer and at the end of the night, we'll hug each other a little tighter. Everything we'll do, we'll do it with you in mind. You're missed and loved every second of every day, and I hope you're still carrying on all of your Thanksgiving traditions wherever you may be now.