The Thanksgiving I remember most vividly is the one that wasn’t. 1987, the day before the holiday, I was on my way to get our turkey when the radio delivered a grim bulletin: Chicago Mayor Harold Washington had collapsed at his City Hall desk and was en route to the hospital. 1/5

I made my way to the @chicagotribune as ER doctors pronounced Washington dead. Throughout Chicago, voters who’d just reelected their first Black mayor joined in a rare civic grief while aldermen eyed the spoils and plotted the most notorious Council meeting in city history 2/5

On the day before Washington’s funeral, I watched as legendary metro editor Ellen Soeteber drew on a cigarette, reviewing a deputy’s plans for newsroom deployment. “Double it,” she said, assuring every mile of the cortège route would be staffed by Tribune journalists. 3/5

None of us got home that week except to sleep. If you were a reporter in Chicago that November, that’s just the way it was. I sent apologies to my in-laws, whom we were hosting. I had a job and everyone understood. There would be other Thanksgivings. 4/5

I’ve been thinking this week about that sad, dutiful holiday. In this season of loss, there is so much and so many we are missing. But that is our job and some of the people we love the most need us to stay away this Thanksgiving. If we do this right, there will be others. 5/5