How Thanksgiving Gave Me the Most Meaningful Day of My Life

My family gratefully headed up to the mountains for the holiday to enjoy a much needed retreat from the grind of the school year. It was our second ski weekend in what was already turning into an extraordinarily rewarding season. It happened to be our luck that our reservation was for the first day of a two day blizzard, dumping 24 inches in that period. After waiting for the Eisenhower tunnel to reopen for an hour, we cleared the pass and drifted slowly into Keystone through the white.

We were thrilled to find that they opened the back mountain in the Keystone resort at least a month earlier than they did the previous year or, as far as I know, almost ever. The next two days had the best snow that I have enjoyed in at least a decade and I spent the full morning of the second day off on my own deep diving the powder on some of my favorite runs. The sort of runs, with a fresh layer, which one can lose themself in both in terms of the beauty and the labor of conquering them. The responsive feel of brilliant new snow pushing and resisting and guiding you down a combined rush of adrenaline and endorphins. What a way to start a season. Amazing as it was, that was not the best part.

Riding up the lift, my daughter who we name here Elia, and I looked at each other in excitement and howled at the sky. That on any mountain in good conditions one can pretty well always hear at least one lunatic howling with joy is one of my favorite elements of ski culture. The passion is free to be shared by all, and my daughter and I always whoop madly when we find an exhilarating run. My young son, who we will call Adam, looked at us howling, shook his head, and retreated back into his quiet steadiness. After much cajoling, he agreed to howl with us if there was a good reason. We got off the lift, and the three of us shot off, not an ounce of hesitation in either child. Emma howled. I howled louder. Adam howled loudest. I had a wolf pack, and we were killing it.

The Last Alamo is one of my favorite runs at Keystone. On a normal day, it is a steep blue groomer which extends a nearly 1000 foot vertical elevation change as it stretches on for what looks like a mile from the top. It is wide, but feels pressed when viewed from the top because of its slow curve through trees which as a result look much closer than they are. That day, it was covered in soft but well-formed moguls constructed by repeated passes of generally skilled skiers in the fresh powder. Between the moguls was soft, forgiving snow. From the top, the repeated pattern stretched into the abyss to form an endless gauntlet of exertion. At nearly any point and from any perspective, it looked intimidating. But not to my wolves.

Howling whenever they neared each other, my pack blew past nearly every one of the 10 or so other people who were already on that expansive run when we got there. Halfway down, Adam stopped to catch his breath, and I asked him what he thought. He shook his head, accusing “you said this would be easy!” I laughed. “Dude, you’re crushing this. There is nothing about it that even looks remotely difficult for you! You love it, admit it!” He shook his head, then tore off at such speed that he caught Ella before she reached the bottom, and the two howled together as they carved at top speed down the cat trail back to the lift. We did it three more times before we were exhausted. However much we loved it, our bodies were not yet tuned to that level of skiing so early in the season.

Tearing down that exquisite run, tough conditions for beginners but immaculate for the initiated, with my pack of howling ski maniacs, was one of the best moments in my life. The thrill of the speed, the exhilaration of the effort, and most of all the joy of joining my two children in exulting in their own enormous talent as we tore down the mountain together in triumph was an indescribable delight.

I know that for many, the idea of having children is, at best, a questionable decision (and to be fair, there certainly are some for whom one wonders whether their offspring might be apocalyptic). Viewed from a financial perspective, there are few worse investments, especially as expensive as college is in the US. Viewed from an ease of life angle, your money goes less far, you get half as much rest, and those battered souls who have already survived the teenage years assure me that there are troubling times in store for me as my own children approach adolescence.

But for all the extra heartache, concern, frustration, exhaustion and thankfully rare anger, my children bring enormous joy into my life on a daily basis. I do not believe that any such joy may be found in parallel without children. As adorable as our dogs are, and as much as we sincerely love them, they do not even come close. Days like those of Thanksgiving 2024 are the platonic form of why having children is literally awesome: they combine kinship, shared passions, commitment and the delight of helping someone to grow into a single, living expression of love. Not to mention a whole lot of mischievous fun. More rewarding experiences in life cannot exist.

I love my children.