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This Thanksgiving, tables across our country will have an empty seat.
It can be for the loved one who cannot travel or for the parent stationed abroad.
Maybe it’s for your sister or brother on the other side of town – staying away to protect everyone during this pandemic and to make sure next year is celebrated together.
For the families of Americans lost this year, that chair is another reminder that someone they love will never come home.
Over the years, the traditions that our family created became sacred rituals: making family recipes, passed down from generation to generation, in a warm and crowded kitchen; set the table with fresh flowers and light candles; play soccer and checkers; taking our ever growing family photo.
Traditions helped us find joy after having our own empty chair at the table. They remind us that despite so many changes, family ties do not.
This year, our turkey will be smaller and the cooking noise will be a little quieter.
There will be no family outings in the cold or funny squabbles between the grandchildren.
Like millions of Americans, we are temporarily abandoning traditions that we cannot safely do. It is not a small sacrifice.
These moments with our loved ones, the lost time, cannot be returned. However, we know that it is the price of protecting each other and one that we do not pay alone.
Isolated in our own dining rooms and kitchens, scattered from coast to coast, we are healing together.
Still, like you, our family will cling to our most important tradition: taking a moment to tell the many reasons we need to be thankful.
We are grateful for the frontline workers who have never stopped showing up during these long and confusing months, making sure our food is harvested and shipped, keeping our grocery stores stocked, picking up our trash, and keeping our cities and towns safe.
We are grateful for the healthcare workers who work long shifts and isolate themselves from their loved ones, the nurses who comfort and help people say one last goodbye, and the doctors who fight for every breath.
We are grateful for educators who learned to teach in virtual classrooms almost overnight, who did the extra work to reach families without the proper technology, or who received late-night phone calls from parents on the verge of tears.
We are grateful for parents who have led their families through chaos, working or looking for work, while navigating childcare and remote learning.
We thank the researchers and scientists who have spent this year learning everything they can to understand how to fight this pandemic and are working tirelessly to find a vaccine and a therapeutic.
We are grateful for the American spirit of our people, who do not flinch from crisis and hardships, but come together to lift up one another.
All those who lost their jobs but not their hearts, who donated to food banks or asked their neighbors, What can I do? How I can help? We are grateful for all who reminded us that we are greater than the challenges we face.
Above all, we are grateful for the faith and trust that we have been given to continue to serve this beautiful, courageous and complicated nation as its future president and first lady.
This year of losses has revealed our collective strength. It has shown us that our lives are connected in invisible ways, that we can be separate without being alone.
As temperatures drop and nights lengthen, these are the truths that will illuminate our way forward.
We must hold onto our gratitude for the people who show up every day and strengthen our communities.
With courage, compassion and a commitment to stand up for what we believe in, there is nothing this country cannot do.
May the emptiness at our tables and in our hearts be filled with memories of love and laughter. May we cherish our traditions, even when they are out of reach, and hold fast to hope for what is to come.
We will get through this together, even if we have to be apart. Happy Thanksgiving, from the Biden family to yours.
