Thanksgiving Gratitude

I would guess that everyone has a favorite holiday. I actually have several, so when I was young, I divided them into subcategories. These were well thought out, time tested and each had their specific reasons for their placement. As an example, my favorite gift-giving holiday is Christmas followed closely by my birthday, the order determined because of the volume of gifts. My favorite non-gift-giving holiday is Halloween because I love the creativity of the costumes and it reminds me of fall, which is my favorite season.  My favorite partial gift-giving holiday is Valentine's Day, as it is always fun to celebrate love. I also have least favorite holidays as well; for example, Easter is my least favorite partial gift-giving holiday because my family never got in to the extravagant gift baskets and since we went to church every Sunday my parents did not feel it was an event that necessitated a new dress. Finally, my least favorite non-gift-giving holiday has always been Thanksgiving. There are several reasons for this. Primarily, I would take ham over turkey any day, and second of all I don't like to cook. I wish I had that gene, but I just don't and my family is well aware of it. Lastly, I never understood the desire to stuff yourself to the point of misery, then of course since I don't do the meal preparation, I ultimately have the job of cleaning up, which is right up there with my disdain of cooking!

As you can see, my categorization system has always been superficial at best as I spent so much time caught up in the "celebration" of the holiday, rather than the true meaning behind most of these events. This year, however, has given me so many opportunities for gratitude that I can't express how much I welcome this season of giving thanks. What has been given to me over the past year, I don't think I could thank enough people, enough times to parlay how grateful I have been.

I think being sick for so long has made me recognize how the smallest things make such a big impact in a life. Or maybe it is the uncertainty of adversity that has us recognize the small acts of kindness, blessings we forget about or even inspirational influences of others that make us eternally grateful for the life we have been given, even with its many challenges.

You may know that my family is of the "yours, mine and ours" variety. PJ has a 17 year old son and 14 year old daughter from a previous marriage as do I with my 11 year old daughter. Kate, the two year old, is ours together although it is often that we think she is the spawn of the devil. What many may not know is that Mary, the 14 year old is autistic in the Asperger's spectrum. If you don't know, those with Asperger's are typically characterized as having significant difficulty with social interaction. They tend to be very literal, missing non-verbal cues and communicate without a filter. PJ's daughter is very high-functioning in many ways. She has good and bad subjects in school; she has Bieber "fever" with posters of the star all over her room and has moments of teenage sass that often tries my patience. But at home it is easy to forget her struggles, that is until she is placed in an unfamiliar setting or environment when her anxiety skyrockets and she completely melts down.

But our family has spent the last four years doing what we can to help her out of the isolation she sometimes creates for herself. We have encouraged her to become more engaged with girls her age, getting her more involved in church programs and trying to get her more comfortable in social settings. These girls from church are tremendous and have been nothing but kind and genuine with her. In fact, there was a church youth dance this past weekend and Mary was invited to go with a girl her age. This girl is beautiful, bubbly and kind. She invited her to come early so they could get ready together and of course...be fashionably late. Even though this young girl has many friends and her outer beauty is apparent, she showed me how beautiful she is on the inside through her selfless care of our daughter. 

About an hour after they arrived at the dance, PJ got a text from the girl saying that he may need to come pick them up because our daughter was crying and didn't want to stay as she didn't know anyone and it was a loud new environment. This young girl, with plenty of friends went out of her way to comfort Mary, help her and looked after when she could have easily been embarrassed and upset when her night had been ruined. Not many teens would be more concerned with a friend who needed such care, than her own good time.

I felt horrible all night that Mary would be embarrassed and be even less willing to expand her social interactions and that her friend would also regret extending herself to the benefit of our daughter. Yet, the next morning, she came down for breakfast and I told her I was sorry she did not have a good time at her dance, and much to my surprise her response was, "it was ok...I was just nervous because it was my first dance." She went on to tell me how she was even asked to dance once. She literally beamed while she spoke of an event that many youth take for granted. You could see in her eyes how good she felt to be included in something that was age appropriate and with someone she could call a friend. As a parent, or in this case, a step parent, I was filled with such gratitude for this small act of kindness not only for this beautiful young friend, but for her parents for raising such a good influence on others. I doubt this young girl will ever realize the full impact she had on us that night.

Having never experienced the health challenges that I have endured this year, I have had my eyes opened wide to the incredible compassion of others. In a time where I have felt the least confident, the least independent and the most useless, I have been the recipient of such incredible acts of selfless kindness. I have had so many shoulders to cry on, I have had very personal gifts sent from strangers and I have been constantly reminded that people care about me, which in the toughest times have kept me going. At 40 years old, finally I have genuinely felt the importance of Thanksgiving. It is not about the food or the time off or even cleaning dirty dishes. It is the daily reminder of the blessings we have. It is the awareness of the good in others, the gratitude you can't express because a simple "thank you" would not be sufficient and it is the warmth of knowing how blessed our lives are because of the compassion of others.

This year, Thanksgiving means more to me than any of my frivolous holiday categorizations. It is my chance to remember and give thanks to you for helping me and my family through some very difficult trials. But more than anything, it is my opportunity to spend time with my family who has been my foundation to get through this long road to survive cancer. I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving and that you will have the opportunity to recognize all of those who have selflessly been there for you this year.
Have a Happy and Safe Thanksgiving.

Ha Ha
Grandma: What would you like for dessert, Joey?
Joey: Pumpkin pie!
Grandma: Pumpkin pie, what, dear? Say the magic word.
Joey: I'm sorry, Grandma. Pumpkin pie, abracadabra