Some Can Give Thanks Only for Memories

Linda Durden can’t make candied yams. She’s never tried, really, never needed to. Year in, year out, with a dash of vanilla or a smidgen of nutmeg, her mom would make them, and most of the rest of the Thanksgiving spread too. Today, her mother isn’t around to cook. Yams were her father’s favorite, but he’s not around to eat them.

Silly things like that, it seems, bring loss to life: Durden’s parents were killed last month in the EgyptAir crash.

She is not alone. Across Southern California, families will sit down to Thanksgiving dinner today missing familiar faces. The plane crash stole Durden’s parents and Max Bowman’s wife. Rachel Newhouse was found murdered in a remote canyon. Sixteen-year-old Scotty Lang, all 6-foot-6 and 250 pounds of him, couldn’t have seemed more healthy--until he collapsed and died on a football field 10 days ago.

Today, their families have awkward choices to make: whether to leave the empty chairs at the table or hide them in the garage; whether to confront loss with a toast or avoid the issue altogether.

Their stories, however, are not about sorrow. They are about resilience, and it may have something to teach those of us who need a day off and a drumstick before we remember what we’re thankful for.

The families see a turning point in grief, a point when they will no longer feel cheated by the time they didn’t have, but thankful for the time they did. They haven’t trivialized what’s happened to them in the past year. But they are managing, through tears, through anger, through prayers, to turn their loss from a dismal requiem to a celebration of life.

“It just kind of happened naturally,” Durden said.

Durden picked up her 21-year-old son, Justin, at Los Angeles International Airport on Wednesday and returned to Dana Point to celebrate Thanksgiving where her family always does, at the home her parents retired to 12 years ago.

“The kind of life my parents led is something to be celebrated,” she said. “You can’t talk about it without smiling. There is no loss. Our parents gave us too much.”

It’s hard to say whether it’s worse to fear your daughter is dead or to know she is dead. On Nov. 12, 1998, Rachel Newhouse, a 20-year-old Orange County native and Irvine High School graduate studying nutrition at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, vanished after a fraternity party at a Mexican restaurant.

As the FBI and police posted notices across six counties and offered a $10,000 reward for information about Newhouse’s disappearance, the family ate Thanksgiving dinner last year under a cloud of uncertainty.

In April, police discovered the remains of Newhouse and a second victim on the remote canyon property of a convicted sex offender.

“If we made it through last year, we can make it through this year,” said Stephanie Morreale, Newhouse’s aunt, who is having family over for Thanksgiving dinner at her home outside Riverside.

“We’re not a family that’s going to dwell on this and make it worse than it needs to be. Rachel is not going to be forgotten. A lot of tears go out every time we think of her, even now. But you can’t let that take over your life because then you’re defeating the purpose of life itself. You have to put it in the proper chapter in the book, and put the book in the proper place on the shelf. And you have to know when to pull the book out and look at it.”

Already, Morreale said her brother--Newhouse’s father--feels fortunate for the time he had with his daughter.

“He looks at it like this: ‘At least I knew her for 20 years,’ ” Morreale said. “Some people never got to meet her. He was her best friend.”

Steve Lang looked as surprised as everyone else.

“I’m having a good time,” he said with a grin.

He was at his son’s funeral.

It was last Saturday, less than a week after Scotty Lang collapsed while running wind sprints with his Fountain Valley High School football team. According to his family, Scotty had no history of medical problems.

Almost 2,000 people--including most members of the football team, clad in their blue-and-gold jerseys--attended the funeral.

Speaker after speaker, including the boy’s parents, told story after story about Scotty’s impish grin, about his practical jokes.

The Langs have relied heavily on their Mormon faith--and memories of the warm relationship they shared with the boy--to overcome their only son’s death.

On Monday night, the Langs voted as a family to have Thanksgiving dinner at their vacation home on the California side of the Colorado River. It was a tough decision, and it will be a tough day: Scotty loved the house on the river, and he used to gaze at the stars, unpoisoned by city lights, through his telescope.

Some traditions will change. If nothing else, the family may need a smaller turkey.

“He was the king of food,” Steve Lang said. “It was incredible.”

But other traditions will endure.

“Every year on Thanksgiving, everybody sits around after dinner, and we talk about what we’re grateful for,” he said. “I’m sure we won’t break the tradition this year. Because we have so much to be thankful for.”

Rick and Dotti Foth’s three children have an image of their parents’ final moments, together, hands clasped, just like they would have wanted it after 45 years of marriage, on those last moments before EgyptAir Flight 990 plummeted into the Atlantic.

The kids like the image because it means that their parents were comforted--and the kids are comforted by it too.

The Foths seemed to challenge their three children and four grandchildren to keep up. They had planned a ski trip for February with their friends of 40 years, Barbara and Art Peever, who also died in the crash. The foursome were headed to Egypt for another adventure.

“The loss will never change,” said Linda Durden, one of the Foths’ children. “But the fact that they went together, that they went enjoying life, and that they went without regrets, that’s what’s comforting. “

The Bowman brood, replete with seven grandchildren, is getting a little big for Thanksgiving. Most years, the family splits into factions for the big dinner.

Not this year--not 3 1/2 weeks after Judith Bowman died in the EgyptAir crash. This year, the family will be packed together, packed into son Steven’s Huntington Beach home.

Judith Bowman’s husband of 40 years, Max, is bringing a ham--”in case no one knows how to cook a turkey,” he said. The couple lived in the same Huntington Beach home for three decades. Max Bowman, a former lifeguard in the city, eventually led the couple to travel the world. Judith Bowman and three friends were embarking on an ambitious three-week tour of Egypt and Israel.

The holidays will be trying times.

Still, Max Bowman cherishes the time he had with his wife.

“Life has been good to me, and it was good to Judith,” he said. “This has changed my life and my children’s as well. But the message is that time is so precious. You should not waste it. Don’t go to bed with sorrow or madness. Tell your spouses that you love them. Love and cherish your friends. Because that’s all you have on this earth. And don’t think about tomorrow.”