Plaxico Burress lost millions upon millions of dollars. He lost his football career with the Giants. He lost a verdict in the court of public opinion. And most of all, Burress lost two Thanksgivings with his wife and two small children.
When he awakens today inside his Totowa mansion, with wife Tiffany, 4-year-old Elijah and 2-year-old Giovanna, Burress will give thanks as much as anyone can.
He didn’t beat cancer, as Mark Herzlich of the Giants has. Burress isn’t that kind of inspirational story, as much as he tries to do the right, sensible, responsible, things now.
But as he walked yesterday across the locker room of Woody Johnson’s Jets, the team that has given him a second chance, a smile creased Burress’ face when he was asked for his vision of Thanksgiving Day 2011.
“Free at last, I’m home!” Burress told The Post. “Enjoy Thanksgiving.”
Today he gets to remember what a husband and father is supposed to feel on Thanksgiving, carving a turkey surrounded by loved ones instead of feeling like one as prisoner number 09R3260 inside the Oneida Correctional Facility in Rome, N.Y.
He remembers exactly what they served him on Thanksgiving 2010.
“They serve you some sliced turkey … just watered-down mashed potatoes and gravy and different things like that. But you’re really not in that kinda mood to eat, being that you have a family at home, and they’re enjoying Thanksgiving and you’re away,” Burress said. “It’s kind of a bittersweet day, moment, to say the least.”
He didn’t even eat the sliced turkey. Instead, he had “maybe some rice and different things like that, wasn’t too much to eat so …”
He said he didn’t even want to try the turkey.
“I didn’t really eat any of the food. It was terrible.”
He didn’t know who Mayor Bloomberg was the fateful night three Novembers ago, when he toted an unlicensed Glock inside a Manhattan nightclub and shot himself in the right leg. He sure knew who he was on Thanksgivng 2010 whenever he was alone with his thoughts feeling sorry for himself.
“Just cold … dreary … just kinda kicking yourself for putting yourself in a situation, take yourself away from your family and not be there for the special days and holidays and not be able to spend it with them,” Burress said. “It was my daughter’s first Thanksgiving without me. It hurts in a different way that nobody ever understands, and being that it’s my first one home, being able to celebrate with my daughter, it’s emotional to say the least.”
He remembers what it was like talking over the telephone to Tiffany on Thanksgiving 2010.
“You just hear everybody in the background having fun and all those kinda things,” Burress said. “My wife said it was kinda bittersweet for me not to be around. And just hearing her tone of her voice talking to me during that time, you just try to fight it. And there’s nothing that you can really do about it. You just say to yourself that when my time comes around again, it’s gonna be extra special.”
Giovanna was born while he was in prison.
“I don’t remember crying on that day, but I cried so much that I lost count in the first couple of weeks,” Burress said. If there are tears today, they will be tears of joy.
“I’ll probably eat at home first,” Burress said. “Then I’ll probably slide by the Tyree’s [Super Bowl XLII teammate David Tyree] and, you know, see if I can get me some sweet potato pie.”
Burress was standing at his locker with a big smile as he mapped out Thanksgiving 2011.
“I’ll probably slide by the Jacobs’ [former Giants teammate Brandon Jacobs] and see if I can get me a little banana pudding, that kind of deal. “
His teammates know how much his family means to him these days. They’ve watched him hand the footballs he caught in the end zone from Mark Sanchez to Elijah.
“Every day was difficult, but the Thanksgivings and the Christmases and the Easters and different things like that, and Halloween, and just not being able to be there just to see the emotion and jubilation on your kids’ face and your wife and different things like that, it hits you a little harder,” Burress said. “So that’s why every day, basically, is real special for me, especially Thanksgiving is [today] and I get to be home all day, and we’re just gonna just take it all in.”
For the first time since he joined the NFL in 2000, he will have Thanksgiving Day off. No football. Family and freedom, though. One of those days when it is better to give thanks than to receive.