Bellies full of fried potatoes and rice, I lean back on the wooden bench and study the face of my student as she asks me across the narrow chili spotted tea house table, “this year, Miss Kelly, on Thanksgiving we can eat together?”
“Of course!” a response clueless as to what depths such a request might have come from...
“Do you remember? Last year I give you Happy Thanksgiving message, you told me you do not have Thanksgiving in Lhasa, and you said that next year we together would have Thanksgiving... so we celebrate together?”
“Of course!” a response dumbfounded by the memory of a girl who has been holding on to that brief text message exchange for an entire year, a year crowded with many thousands of other events... a response gleeful over the prospect of sharing a holiday with her as my own family... a response stunned into submission by the mighty Spirit going before me in all things and barely holding back a chuckle at my surprise...
“Of course... but there's no turkey in Lhasa, we will have to eat chicken...”
