And maybe the attention will keep Brunswick, Ga., from trying to claim that its residents started Thanksgiving just as they have tried to claim Brunswick County, Va., stew as their own. The Thanksgiving and stew questions, in fact, may be ones to put to each of the Presidential candidates campaigning in Virginia before the Commonwealth’s Feb. 12, 2008, primary.

But it was best to spend time again with family, especially in a year marked with serious health challenges for some family members and the loss of another. No one wishes to lose a family member, of course, though each of us knows that we will. And we know those missing remain a part of family holidays, such as Thanksgiving, and we are grateful for times shared. Still, it is difficult to be short even that one hug and one smile that have been a part of every single Thanksgiving celebration of one’s life.

Neither do any of us want our family members who suffer injury or are aging suddenly to carry unnecessary burdens as health problems mount. Remembering some of those family members on Thanksgiving Day revived thoughts prompted by Walter Isaacson’s fine new biography of Albert Einstein published earlier this year. Isaacson is now the President of The Aspen Institute, but was formerly the CEO of CNN and managing editor of Time magazine. As one would expect from a New Orleans native, Isaacson is a terrific storyteller, something his 2003 biography of Benjamin Franklin proved beyond a doubt.

Isaacson notes that Einstein lamented to the end of his life that he wished he had had more mathematics. Don’t we all? Einstein’s early breakthroughs in physics were conceptual, but by the middle of the 20th century, advanced mathematics had emerged as language of physics. Even Einstein found it hard to keep up, which ought to make Virginia parents and students a half-century later feel a little better.

Einstein’s curiosity and imagination proved just as important as his knowledge and observations in his early years. And he pushed back against more contemporary concepts, such as quantum physics, which suggested that one could not know a precise position or the precise momentum of an object, only the probability of those things. Einstein’s “God does not play dice with the universe” comments reflected his insistence that there were realities, not just relative positions. Einstein definitely would have had a GPS system in his car.

In one of his concluding paragraphs, Isaacson captures the essence of Einstein’s self description as a “deeply religious non-believer.”

“For some people, miracles serve as evidence of God’s existence. For Einstein it was the absence of miracles that reflected divine providence. The fact that the cosmos is comprehensible, that it follows law, is worthy of awe. This is the defining quality of a (Einstein’s words) ‘God who reveals himself in the harmony of all that exists.’”

Before Einstein died of an aneurysm at age 76, those around him described him as becoming more peaceful, milder in his judgments, more mellow in his thoughts, almost sweet to those closest to him. These are reassuring descriptions from Isaacson, particularly since they applied to a man who had been engaged vigorously for decades in some of the most important and lasting discoveries and developments of mankind -- and the great and cataclysmic events of his century.

Who would not wish those life characteristics for members of his or her own family? As we age, this narrative suggests, our demeanor, our families and our communities can help a simpler, more peaceful time emerge. As busy and as competitive as we are, it may be hard to imagine that such a time or harmony could exist. But daily lives, health matters, visits and trips need not be disruptive and worrisome emergencies if, together, families can make the proper arrangements. Routine matters can be, well, more routine.

Crowded, groaning tables last Thursday certainly prove again that supportive environments do exist and that families can make proper arrangements. And there is no better proof than Thanksgiving that family traditions -- part past, present and future -- can be historic in every century.