“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”
– Melody Beattie
I was poking around Facebook and witnessed a plethora of heart-felt “I’m thankful for…” posts. Then I looked at my wall and found a bunch of smart-ass comments because I was hoping to make my friends laugh. But, eventually, all the serious posts induced a contemplative moment. So allow me a moment of sobriety. Well, maybe not sobriety but, perhaps, seriousness.
Thanksgiving is a day we set aside to contemplate the many blessings in our lives—to really think about specific examples of our good fortune. I have so many I can’t possibly enumerate them all, but I’d like to mention just a few.
To begin with, I’m unable to express with mere words how thankful I am for my children—all three of them. Like all kids, they have brought into my life indescribable pain and frustration, but I don’t really remember that very clearly because of what I do remember with crystal clarity. What I remember is all the joy they brought into my life.
I remember the day each of them came into my life. When I think of those moments, it’s as though I were actually there holding their mother’s hand as we welcomed them into this world and then holding each of them for the first time. My youngest daughter was born in a birthing center in Grand Prairie, TX. She slept between her mother and me that first night and I still remember the way she smelled as I drifted off to sleep, so thankful for another one to hold.
I’m thankful that my first daughter has such a tender heart. I remember the first time she tried to take her contacts out by herself and I walked in on her trying to remove the right lens with a nail file, because she didn’t want to ask for help. I unthinkingly yelled her name at the top of my lungs out of fear that she would put her eye out, and in the process almost caused her to do exactly that. I remember we both burst into tears and we wept as I held her.
I’m thankful for my son and the way he loved everyone he met. Tim knew no strangers, and would quite literally do anything for a person in need. I’m thankful that he used the last year of his life to begin a new chapter, free of drugs and filled with a determination to make a new life for himself.
I’m also thankful for the men my daughters chose to marry. They are hard-working men of good character each with an unsurpassed work ethic and are good fathers to their sons.
I am thankful for my wife of nearly 16 years who has put up with my bullshit and who tells me when I’m wrong but loves me in spite of myself. She stood by me during months of unemployment and sat quietly with me as I wept after the passing of my son. Through trials and elation she has been faithful to me in every sense of the word.
And God. My friends. I’m so thankful for the friends God has brought into my life. I remember sitting in my therapist’s office last January. I had just related a story that was but one example of the support I received when I was trying so desperately to climb out of the dark, suffocating pit of grief that accompanied my son’s passing. She looked at me and said
“You are more fortunate than you know to have such friends. I have a lot of patients who, like you, are men in their fifties. They have no one in their lives. Unlike you, they have no family, are divorced or never married, and they’ve not invested in friendships and are essentially alone with nothing but their work. Then one day they have a crisis, and they are forced to come to me because they have no one else.”
I’m thankful for my job and my manager. If you have ever had a job you hate, and I’ve had plenty, you know that feeling of dread and anxiousness that accompanies you every morning during your drive into work. And if you’ve ever had a really great job with a really great boss, you know the amazing sense of wellbeing, by contrast, as you cross the threshold Monday through Friday.
I have so much to be thankful for, but more than anything I am thankful for my life—but not just living on this plain of existence for a brief time. I am thankful for the meaning that is in my life. It has meaning in the way my wife and daughters look back at me when I look into their eyes. It has meaning in the way my friends say “I love you.” It has meaning in the way my mother held me and wept with me that Sunday in September during the dedication of my youngest grandson. It has meaning when I see the last photo of me with my son and how happy we looked together.
This Thanksgiving I contemplated all these things, and this holiday season I hope as much for you and so much more.
Guy-o
