Posted by
AudiR10TDI on Saturday, November 18, 2006 8:43:48 AM
for what you have, be thankful for what you have escaped.
I'm blind in one eye and deaf in one ear. I'm thankful that I yet have sight in one eye, and hearing in one ear. The beauties of the Earth and the Heavens become far more precious to a person who is in danger of losing both. (Take care of your hearing. Mine was damaged by being up close and personal to racing cars in the days when nobody knew about ear defenders, especially for children.)
Be thankful if you can still walk up the stairs carrying your groceries or dragging the buggy with your groceries in it, even if you're cursing the person who designed a building you can't get into without climbing a steep flight of stairs. If you can only walk with assistance, be thankful you can walk at all. (And if you are on the sidewalk behind a person who is walking with assistance, take a few deep breaths and tell yourself that you will not, in fact drop dead if you have to wait a minute for a safe place to pass this person, and learn to smile at her as you pass. She's not walking with that walker just to thwart your desire to break the land speed record to the next corner.)
Be thankful that your Mama or Daddy or both are still alive to sit at the table with you. I am the last person in my cohort who has active living parents; I came near to losing my Daddy this summer and I'm thankful that he's still alive to sit in front of the TV and dispute the calls of referees for NCAA football this Thanksgiving. My college roommate had to place both her parents in a nursing home only last month, as her father's got Alzeimer's and her mother is bedridden. She herself has diabetes and is starting to suffer side effects from it, and her husband just had back surgery and is incapacitated for some time to come. Another friend of mine has a Mama who's going through chemo for colon cancer but who is still able to sit at the table this year even if she's not able to share the meal. Be thankful you have a family who still recognize you. I have an uncle who has to be reminded every 30 minutes or so who I am and where I came from. I am thankful he is alive to grace our table, and I hope they're all thankful that although I may not remember their names, I recognize them and remember who they are. (If your Auntie can't remember your name, remind her in a kind and loving voice. She's not doing it to make you angry or show she doesn't think you're important.)
Be thankful the cat comes to meet you at the door, even if she's making it hard for you to hang up your coat, put your stuff away and get to the TV to turn it on. She is showing her love to you in her welcoming. One day she'll be dead or -- like my beloved Rosie -- get out through a screen that the landlord has refused to fix for four years and run away, and you will be sorry you were not kind to her.
Above all else, be thankful that you have what you need to keep body and soul together, and keep your body and your soul together. Life is not only a matter of envy and jealousy of those who have more than you have; it is also a matter of thankfulness that you have more than you'll ever need, and you still have 'eyes the better to see and ears the better to hear'. Because as 9/11 taught us most recently, any or all of it could be snuffed out in a heartbeat, leaving you mourning for what you never knew you had until it was taken away...and all those really stinging ripostes you have been planning to heap on your nearest and dearest when he got home rise up to haunt you when he'll never come home again.
Maybe your life is filled with sorrow. There is still more sorrow that you do not have. Take time this Thanksgiving to think of what could have happened to you this year and didn't. Trust me, it'll cheer you up no end |