What Are You Thankful For?

There are people sometimes missing around the Thanksgiving table, those we love who have died or who are maybe in the military or just spread out across the country. As the faces shift in and out, the customs change – maybe one generation adds a pea and olive salad, which eventually takes the place of a tomato aspic shaped like a fish. In our family, Thanksgiving was usually at my grandmother’s -- when she died 10 years ago, it shifted to my house, and so on.

But one thing that doesn’t change is the reason we gather together--to be thankful. Every year we go around the table and each say what we’re thankful for. I’d like to share some thankfulness from our house and invite you to share yours.

So, this year is the first I can remember with my six-year-old nephew Candler, sweet husky-sized boy with one front tooth, participating in the speaking of thanks. He immediately began thinking, looking for the correct answer, as if there could be only one perfect, right Thankful. Finally, knowledge lit up his chubby face “I know! Life! I’m thankful to be alive!”

His three-year-old brother Oliver concurred, “And not go to the hospital.” Candler, as the big brother, often interprets for Ollie. “He keeps remembering ‘hospital’, he’s obsessed with it.” A few months back, the boys were in a fender bender, where Candler had to be taken to the hospital for bumps and bruises.

We all had our regular thankfuls -- being together, food, health, jobs, new babies. But I have to agree with Candler, my very favorite thankful this year is nothing more -— and certainly nothing less--than life. Watching my son Wolfie driving the boys around the back yard in that old jeep he basically built scratch, the little men taking turns in his lap “driving,” with me leaning over the rail calling down “watch the azaleas!”

And I’m also really really thankful for everyone in the parish and Patricia and Joe, and for getting through this quite interesting year. What are your thankfuls?