What We're Thankful For

Melvin and I have much to be thankful for. I for one am thankful for Melvin's presence next to me today, for his life, for this moment of connection we are sharing under the wide open sky. And for the luminous memory of his five brothers: George, Stanley, Alfred, Elmer and Archie.

As a group, they were a slow motion parade - an extravagant display of panache, moxie, charisma, flamboyance, and supreme self-confidence. Not a group of mere mortals to know and love, but a magnificent cavalcade of richly feathered tails, quivering wings, shifting color, triumphant song and vibrant dance to experience and be awed by.

We WERE awed. These big, beautiful birds, whose bodies had been systematically mutilated and broken in the name of "Thanksgiving" dinner, never ceased to express with inexhaustible passion and panache not only their absolute love of life but, most heartbreakingly, their absolute certainly that life loved them back - missing toes, severed beaks, fractured joints, brittle bones, collapsed lungs, struggling hearts, terminally broken bodies and all. One on one, they were just regular turkeys: curious, inquisitive, sensitive, communicative, friendly, affectionate. Regular guys, with good and bad sides, good and bad days, ordinary and extraordinary qualities, personal errors and personal triumphs. Generally friendly. Sometimes shy, cranky, or foolish but always aware, always full of feeling, perception, memory and, astonishingly, always full of enthusiasm.

If I had to use only one word to describe turkeys it would be "enthusiasm". Not euphoria, not excitement. Enthusiasm, straight from the root of the word: "en theo", "with god". I haven't met anyone who is more connected with the throbbing grace of every living heartbeat, and more intent on communicating this awareness than turkeys are. And they communicate it constantly, contagiously, and with the touching certainty that they are heard and understood. They used to follow us around, issuing forth an almost constant stream of melodic replies, opinions, observations, remarks, wisecracks, and comebacks that our limited hearing range distinguished mainly as gobbles and clucks, but that their infinitely more sensitive ears discerned as complete and meaningful musical phrases that were constantly enriched with color and touch signals — colors we can't see because we are blind to ultraviolet light, and touch we can't feel because we are numb to the touch that can be felt only through the tips of feathers.

So we listened humbly to these beings whose experience of the world's colors, scents, and sounds is so vastly richer than ours, whose awareness of the world's beauty far surpasses ours, and we kept listening even though we were aware that we understood only a fraction of what they communicated. Probably, they voiced things that are interesting to all of us — friends, foes, finds, fears, pleasures, loneliness, hope — and things that are interesting only to other turkeys. Whatever it was, it was obviously worth expressing. Often, the six brothers approached sanctuary visitors as a group, but just as often, they separated from the flock and visited alone with their favorite people. Like most turkeys, they were both perfectly social and perfectly independent, blessed with a remarkable gift for both vibrant social interaction and quiet solitude — sometimes gregarious, sometimes, with equal ease, solitary creatures.

Today, it's just Melvin and me. I sit on the ground and he climbs in my lap, warm and pulsing with the mysterious life within, and the soft bare neck, the beating heart, the living stillness of his being. A wide open heart, a vast field, a free sky, a warm breeze, a human and a turkey, communicating about what matters most — love, loss, life — one being speaking to the being of another.

We have much to be thankful for.

Thank you for this moment of grace.
Thank you for Melvin's luminous presence.
Thank you for his brothers' glorious days of freedom.
Thank you for those of us who find it intolerable that countless persons like Melvin are forced in and out of short, miserable lives, mutilated, mocked, raped, forced to live in their own excrement, tormented, mass murdered, dismembered, burned, used for an evening's amusement, and flushed into mass graves.
Thank you for the growing number of hearts who refuse to ignore this atrocity, refuse to support it, refuse to perpetuate it, and certainly, refuse to give thanks for it.

Joanna Lucas
© 2006 Joanna Lucas
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If living ethically is important to you, please remember that there is nothing humane about “humane” animal farming, just as there is nothing ethical or defensible about consuming its products. When confronted with the fundamental injustice inherent in all animal agriculture—a system that is predicated on inflicting massive, intentional and unnecessary suffering and death on billions of sentient individuals—the only ethical response is to strive to end it, by becoming vegan, not to regulate it by supporting “improved” methods of producing dairy, eggs, meat, wool, leather, silk, honey, and other animal products. For more information, please read The Humane Farming Myth. Live vegan and educate others to do the same.

Another View on "Turkey Day" - by Delisa Renideo

He felt almost cat-like, rubbing up against the back of my legs. And he followed me around the yard like a devoted dog. And like my cats and dogs, he even bumped his head up against my hand as he stood beside me, requesting that I pet him. And all this affection after only meeting that afternoon.

As I walked around the grounds, I could tell he was still following me because I could hear his labored breathing. He was only a year old, but he wheezed and limped painfully because of his extreme overweight. No, he wasn’t a glutton, out of control of his appetite. His size was the result of genetic manipulation. I was told that he would probably die of a sudden heart attack before his second birthday.

I had never met a turkey in person before, except in cages at the State Fair. But I will never forget the day I spent with him and others like him at Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary, outside Denver. Like the other 300 million turkeys that are killed in the U.S. each year, my new friend had had part of his beak and some of his toes cut off when he was only hours old, without any anesthesia. He was conceived by artificial insemination, as all turkeys are these days, because mating is physically impossible. Human appetite for white meat has led to the genetic engineering of turkeys with huge breasts that make it impossible for them to get close enough to mate. They are also created to grow abnormally fast, as well as very large, leading to lameness and stress on their immature skeletons, hearts and lungs. Thus, the limping and wheezing of my special new friend as he tried to balance his over-sized body on his mutilated feet as he followed me affectionately around. We generally don’t think much about the centerpiece on our Thanksgiving table. If we think about the turkey as a real animal at all, it’s probably to assume that he doesn’t really have feelings or a personality. Certainly not the way our dogs and cats do. But after my experience at Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary, I know without a shadow of a doubt that isn’t true. Not only do these affectionate animals have personalities, but they wear their feelings where all can see them. The color of their heads changes from blue to pink and red as their emotions change.

It used to bother me to hear people say, “Happy Turkey Day” instead of “Happy Thanksgiving.” I was saddened to think that we had lost the whole point of Thanksgiving, which is to remember to be grateful for all we have, and instead we have focused on stuffing ourselves as well as a turkey.

But now I have another idea. If we could truly celebrate Turkey Day, maybe it would be like celebrating Mother’s Day or Father’s Day or Veteran’s Day or President’s Day. We don’t eat our mothers, fathers, veterans, or president. We honor them, appreciating them for who they are and what they have done for us. We set aside a day to remember them, respect them, and be grateful for them.

I envision the day when we will look back upon the slaughter of 45 million turkeys for Thanksgiving alone – that’s 675 million pounds of animal flesh in one day – with regret. I’d like to think that when that day comes, we might have a real “Turkey Day” to honor the lives of these sensitive, affectionate beings that we harmed so much before we awakened to a reverence for all life. And when that day comes, not only will we have peace on our plates, but we’ll be on our way to peace in the world.

Delisa resides in Wasilla, Alaska and is cofounder of the Alaska Vegetarian Society
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Read more stories about the turkeys of Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary:
The Warmth Of Other Suns
Ian's Crossing
Sun Day
What We're Thankful For
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If living ethically is important to you, please remember that there is nothing humane about “humane” animal farming, just as there is nothing ethical or defensible about consuming its products. When confronted with the fundamental injustice inherent in all animal agriculture—a system that is predicated on inflicting massive, intentional and unnecessary suffering and death on billions of sentient individuals—the only ethical response is to strive to end it, by becoming vegan, not to regulate it by supporting “improved” methods of producing dairy, eggs, meat, wool, leather, silk, honey, and other animal products. For more information, please read The Humane Farming Myth. Live vegan and educate others to do the same.