The Thankful Book

I thought I would share one of our family’s Thanksgiving traditions with you. We travel every Thanksgiving, and I wanted a way to document some of the things we were thankful for, but I didn’t want to cart around anything bulky on our road trips. In 2007 I ran across a little book at The One Spot in Target. I threw it in my purse and carried it around for a full week, knowing that if I took it out, I’d most certainly forget to pack it for Thanksgiving.

This will be the 7^th year we will pass the little book around the table at my aunt’s house and each write something in it we are thankful for. Each year that I’ve remembered to bring it has been a little Thanksgiving miracle in itself. But I’m so glad I did, especially since our son Jack is no longer here to write in the book.

Two and a half months after the accident, we were faced with our first Thanksgiving without him. We brought out the little striped book, realizing that although we still had things to be thankful for, our loss was so enormous, so painful, so staggering, that we had to dig really deep to even sit at the table with his empty chair, let alone write in the book. My sister, Liz, wrote the only thing she could muster up that day, being thankful for “modern transportation” so we could be together in our grief.

We laughed and cried as we looked back over Jack’s entries, as each year he spelled it “thankfull” instead of thankful. I saw the years he was “thankfull” for Legos, and family, and even ‘dough,’ a little joke he started making when he was in kindergarten. Jack was quirky. He rarely had an answer you would expect. I asked him why he had said dough. Was he talking about money, a la the Welcome Back Kotter era? No, the kid was really just thankful for dough-- you know, the kind they hand out to play with at Italian restaurants while you wait. Ok. Then there was the year he was thankful for Prester John, a legendary Christian King from the 12^th Century whom none of us had ever heard of. Quirky, right?

I treasure the little book, and love looking back over it.

The entries aren’t long and detailed. On year my nephew just wrote, “you people” as his contribution. Last year our daughter Margaret wrote, “I’m thankful for Shadow (our dog), family, cousins, grammar, and a house/food.”

This Thanksgiving, two years after our horrible loss, I am able to consider many more things that I’m thankful for, including the inexplicable joy that creeps into our days as I realize that 12 short years mothering my son were preferable to a lifetime of never knowing him at all. I am thankful I am able to breathe more easily and see the years in front of me not as a bleak, miserable life sentence, but as a time for more memories to be made and more growth to come as time marches me closer to being with him once again.

When I was getting out the Thanksgiving book this year, I saw a craft Jack had made in school. And I was grateful for whichever teacher or room mother forced him to do it. You know, the good old, ‘trace your hand and turn it into a turkey’ craft where you write down things you are thankful for? It says,

 

Dear Mom and Dad

Thank you for:

            Being great parents,

            Taking care of me,

            Loving me forever.

 

I think the word choice is perfect, because that’s how it is, isn’t it? Even though times will change and certain cherished ones no longer sit in the chairs around the table, our love for them never ends. It truly is forever.

 

Happy Thanksgiving.

 

 

 

What Have I Been Up To? About 5' 5 1/2"

So I went 4 days without posting. In my defense, because Monday felt like Sunday, today feels a little like Thursday, so the week isn’t really over yet…

Anyway, lest you imagine that I was busy exercising and decorating and volunteering and meditating and generally making the world a better place, I will fill you in on a few things I HAVE been doing this week:

1. Staying up way past my bedtime watching Lifetime movies, including, but not limited to:” The Mary Kay Letourneau Story.” Yes, I feel dirty.

2. Being in a grumpy mood each morning (see #1)

3. Refereeing two kids who have gotten along beautifully for the past 8.5 years but who now are at each other’s throats.

4. Obsessing that putting them in different schools this year has destroyed their sibling bond.

5. Trying to convince my underweight son that his winter coat does not “make him look fat.”

6. Trying to convince my son that he is not ugly, stupid, unathletic and generally terrible at everything (I remember starting to feel this way in 6th grade, not 5th. He must be advanced in the self-loathing department.) I think the sex talk was easier.

7. Being gentle and kind and understanding when my (8 year old!) daughter couldn’t put on her own socks and shoes because she had already brushed her teeth and it made her socks “feel weird.”

8. Getting so pissed at my daughter when she was screaming at me for putting on her socks and shoes WRONG that I said, “Well, how would you feel if you were dead in an earthquake?” then showing her a gruesome front page photo that no child should see. Aargh.

9. Grunting hello and goodbye to my husband as we said barely 2 words together all week (see #’s 1-8)

10. Remembering the Brownie meeting 20 minutes away 45 minutes after it started

11. Forgetting my dear friend’s fundraising dinner until…the day after.

12. Wondering why so few of the bloggers I read were posting this week, and then realizing that they just weren’t showing up in my reader. Thanks, Google.

Oh yes, I also went to work, did a lot of carpooling, laundry and wiping of muddy paws and nether regions of our dog, seeing that our yard has turned into a muddy swamp.

But mainly, despite my complaints, grumpiness, acne and general malaise, I spent time praying for the people of Haiti, reading their stories, and trying to remember to be grateful for this charmed and wonderfully messy life I have in a world where others are suffering so so much.

Forgetting a Brownie meeting is one thing, forgetting my blessings is another.


On the good news front: Things are coming together for our Well Project! Look for more news soon on this blog. The kids and I have already found $130 in change in the house that we had been saving for Disney and a generous donation has come in via mail from an awesome blogger. Thanks for your encouragement on this!

More than Enough

So I went to my favorite thrift store today because holiday Mondays mean 50% off everything. It took me 20 minutes to find a parking place, and once inside I couldn't navigate the aisles because of all the people. Now I'm not easily dissuaded when it comes to finding a bargain, nor am I at all squeamish-- all my clothes are used, and a lot of my furniture comes from the curb-- but I just wasn't up to it today.

Not enough carts, loud music, too many people jostling against each other, plus lots of coughs and sneezes. I felt like I might as well go ahead and inject myself with a case of the swine flu just to get it over with.

And for what? To load up on more clothes I may or may not get around to wearing, or another cute thing to paint and figure out where to put? Even after last month's yard sale and big thrift store donation, I still have too much stuff. When I saw the checkout lines snaking around the store, I put back the pants I'd found for Jake.

I left empty handed once I was able to squeeze my way to the door.

I could tell that for a lot of people, being at the store today was NOT about the thrill of the hunt, but instead about the necessity of clothing themselves and their kids. I hope today meant a great chance to find things they needed that will make their lives easier in the months to come. Perhaps what I left behind will be exactly what someone else needed today. Although knowing me, what I left behind was probably something like a 4 foot tall gold birdcage.

My shopping trip became a reminder to count my blessings. A bargain is fun, it's eco-friendly, and it helps my family financially, but it is not a necessity. Why not? Perhaps by virtue of where I was born, or a job, or education, but certainly not because of any great things Tom and I have or haven't done.

And for this I am grateful.

p.s. For those readers who are pray-ers, I'd appreciate prayers for my daughter as she starts a new school tomorrow for 3rd grade! Thanks!

Hobbled and Humbled

I needed and got a kick in the pants today at church, I had been feeling pretty sorry for myself after a couple of recent events, but I think God wanted to put a little more gratitude in my attitude today.

Last week I had another in a long string of eye appointments to determine whether I should re-do an unsuccessful Lasik procedure. I’ll admit that one of the reasons I wanted to get rid of my contact lenses in the first place was because after 25 years of pulling and tugging on my eyes daily, I was getting pretty wrinkly. I was hoping that in addition to stellar vision, I would be able to leave my eyes alone and (hopefully!) halt what I saw as too-rapid aging around the eyes. Well, not only is my vision not great at this point, I’ve had so much pulling and tugging and examining and medicating in the year since my surgery, that I kind of wish I had just kept the contacts.

Anyway, I was feeling kind of bummed about my latest bad eye appointment when a mishap occurred. I was walking Shadow when I fell into a hole. In my own driveway. Ouch. I sprained my ankle. The next morning, as I hobbled on crutches in the kitchen, I fell again, slamming the toes OF THE OTHER FOOT into a kitchen cabinet. Crack. I broke one of my toes. I spent this weekend popping Advil and hobbling to the kids’ games. I was also feeling pretty resentful of my husband who, in my opinion, was not being attentive enough to my condition. I’ll admit I was being passive-aggressive, but I was hoping for some cooing and concern, “Oh you poor thing! Do you want me to take you to the doctor? We must get you checked out!”

In our 16 years together, I have learned I need to be blunt, even forceful, about my needs. “I need a nap. I need you to walk more slowly so I can keep up. I need food in the next 6 minutes or it’s going to get ugly.” You get the idea. Sometimes he doesn’t. But this time I didn’t want to have to say, “I need to keep my feet up for the next 36 hours.” I wanted him to suggest it. Bad idea. This is the same man who thought it would be a great idea on the day that my daughter was induced, right after the doctor had “stripped my membranes,” if we would WALK to an outdoor shopping center about ½ a mile from the hospital to kill some time before delivery. It was 95 degrees in mid-July. I put my swollen foot down at this suggestion, and he looked shocked. So, unless I am bleeding from the head, or have a baby visibly coming out of me, I know I need to make my needs known loud and clear to dear hubby.

As I hobbled into church during a pounding rainstorm this morning, my tiny broken umbrella looking like a mangled pigeon over my head, I was feeling pretty steamed at hubby and pretty sorry for myself. Hubby had to go to an earlier service because of another obligation. The two complaining kids and I headed to the elevator rather than the stairs. The only other person on the elevator with us was Kevin, a young dad of four who is dying of an incurable disease. I was on the elevator because my toe was throbbing. He was on the elevator because he was incapable of climbing stairs any longer. Hmmm.

I deposited the kids in their classes and headed to my own, late of course. It was led by a silky-voiced retired lawyer who held his printed pages up within inches of his face. He showed us the font size of his typed notes—at least 48 point. He has a degenerative eye disease and said to us as he struggled on, “Never take your eyesight for granted.” Double hmmm.

Both of these events helped me put my complaints in perspective. I can see well enough. My toe will be better in a few days. I have a husband with integrity and a good heart. The kids bickered in the back seat all the way home. We pulled up to the house and saw the gutter had pulled away from the house and rain was getting in. We opened the door to a wall of flatulence from Shadow so vile and intense that the kids ran for cover. I smiled and walked over to the screeching Carbon Monoxide detector to shut it off, its lit panel spelling out one word only—“GAS.” Home sweet home, and I’m grateful for every bit of it.

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