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Empty Seats, Delivered Feasts as Virus Changes Thanksgiving

Associated Press

   Vivian Zayas can't keep herself from scrolling through photos of last
   Thanksgiving, when her mother stood at the stove to make a big pot of
   rice and beans and then took a seat at the edge of the table.

   That was before anyone had heard of COVID-19 and before it claimed the
   retired seamstress. Ana Martinez died at 78 on April 1 while recovering
   at a nursing home from a knee replacement.

   The family is having their traditional meal of turkey, yams, green
   beans and rice and beans -- but Zayas is removing a seat from the table
   at her home in Deer Park, New York, this year and putting her mother's
   walker in its place as a reminder of the loss.

   "It's a painful Thanksgiving. You don't even know, should you
   celebrate?" asked Zayas. "It's a lonely time."

   Americans are marking the Thanksgiving holiday Thursday amid an
   unrelenting pandemic that has claimed the lives of more than a quarter
   of a million people in the United States.

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