Thanks For Everything

Embarking on my 51st thanksgiving holiday has me thinking about my earliest recollection of thanksgivings past. My earliest memories of thanksgiving are not that early. That is, I don’t seem to have the same vivid memories of my 5th thanksgiving like I do of my 5th Christmas (on which I received a really cool building set consisting of hundreds of tiny geometric shaped magnetic pieces that could be arranged in all sorts of imaginative patterns on a metal plate). I remember playing with that toy for hours on the cold red painted concrete floor of the tract house we lived at in1963 …Thanksgiving1963 -- not so much.

I guess my earliest recollections of Thanksgiving are really just a hodgepodge of different separate memories. They include pumpkins, pilgrim hats, and turkeys created using scissors, construction paper, and globs of sweet smelling white paste; family gatherings with aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents; college football games actually played on Thanksgiving day and not the day after; Dad’s dressing that, given its mottled green color, may have had a bit more sage than it needed (but dad loved sage); turkeys, hams, yams, brown n serve rolls, relish trays, cranberry sauce – both kinds, grandma’s orange shredded carrot/celery Jell-O salad, and every dessert you can imagine – my favorite being Mom’s fruit cocktail cake (which contains so much sugar that it baked up caramel colored). I also remember the afternoon naps that followed dinner and the evening naps that followed the consumption of leftovers -- little was known in those days about tryptophan, we just thought we were extra tired because we had eaten so much.

From my past lives (a term I use to describe the separate phases of my life) to the present, my thanksgiving roles have traversed the spectrum. I’ve gone from visiting son to visiting son-in-law, to visiting grandson-in-law, to patriarch, back to visiting son-in-law, to host, and finally to restaurant patron. I, like all of us here, have been blessed throughout this time to always have a place to go for thanksgiving dinner, which in these tough times, should not be taken for granted.

So I get to my point, after rambling and reminiscing so much about the past, that we are all very blessed. As for me, I am thankful for all I have this thanksgiving, as it is not that inconceivable that instead of being here, I might have merely been dust -- if not for a twist of fate (thanks again Marc). Instead, I have a full life with children and parents, and brothers and sisters, and pets and friends. I have a great job with promising prospects and enough money to provide my family’s every need and most of their wants (not all though -- since I have a teenage daughter who can fill an internet shopping basket to infinity in less time than it takes to carve a turkey). I have time with my true love to look back on the past, enjoy the present, and ponder the future, with maybe a bit left over to make a fruit cocktail cake. And most of all I am blessed because I realize that all of these things come from my Lord, who is always with me.

Hope it’s the same for you and I hope all are well and stay that way. Mark (also for ATH &B)