Thanksgiving · Family member · Warm · about a minute
Thanksgiving Toast for Someone Deployed (Warm, 1 Minute)
A brother giving the toast at his parents' table while his older sister is deployed overseas, wanting to include her without making his mother more anxious than she already is.
Given by Iver, her younger brother. 131 words. The names are made up.
The toast
Before we eat, a quick one for Bryony.
She's been deployed since June, somewhere it's still a hundred degrees in November. She called on Sunday, and I asked what she wanted from home. I was thinking socks, or beef jerky. She asked for a picture of the maple in the front yard. She said she wanted to look at something cold.
So this morning Dad went out in his robe and took about forty pictures of that tree. Most of the leaves are already down, so it's mostly branches. We sent her the best one anyway.
Now she gets one more. After this, everybody's squeezing onto the porch steps for a picture, coats on, so she can see us being cold too.
Raise your glass. To Bryony, and to the maple.
Why it works: Her odd, specific request from home says how much she misses it without anyone saying so. Dad in his robe photographing a bare tree gets the laugh, and the toast ends with something the whole table can do for her.
Make it yours
Borrow the shape, not the lines. Put your own people, your own year and your own detail in each spot, or answer a few questions and get a first draft built from them.