THIS great holiday of thanks and giving is not a date on a calendar, but a state of the mind.
In a kind of thought about our capacity to realize things, we can sometimes only imagine and remember that no matter how difficult life’s tests are for each of us, there are always others feeling more severe hardships.
The most heavily traveled day of the year arrives with even more seasoned flyers making new calculations as they inhale news about airports and airlines that make them long for proof that safety has improved.
It is why, in whatever fashion women knock themselves out, by the millions, each year, as the men watch their Thanksgiving Day games. We cook our hearts out, make beds in spacious rooms, as we brace ourselves for the in-laws and grandchildren our ingenuity redoubled. We slave over a hot stove, always giving more than what we get, then, of course, settle into a tryptophan-induced nap.
As part of the tradition, it’s time to witness big family fights! Then, everyone eats turkey for a week.
It is time to recognize and celebrate the unexpected blessings in our lives and hopes. It is through goodness and wisdom — succeeding in transmitting truths that bring tranquility to the human spirit in our chosen calling, as little pencils of God — that each of us can bless life and thus repair the world, just by being more which ourselves that in our most precious possession.
I am grateful for my family for many reasons: for what I see them to be, for the loveliness they have been, and for the good, I know in them. I love their essence, their “could be,” in spite of knowing their faults well, the individual lives in each of them that I saw budding and watching them unfold, enchanted and anxious.
I have felt respect, even reverence, for I have seen it meet tragedy, when they had to give back a father and gain nobility. I have watched it win its prizes and I have learned the hard truth a mother learns slowly, that the quick intimacy she has known become hope for loved strangers.
Even her inability to let them be for she is impelled to know that the seeds of value sown in her have been winnowed, for no matter how old a mother is, she watches her middle-aged children for signs of improvement. She never outgrows the burden of love, and to the end, she carries the weight of hope for those she bore, half expecting the newborn child will make the world better.
Thanksgiving Day is first and foremost about family. We too recognize the friends who have touched our lives. We are truly grateful, as Santayana once wrote, friends “are part of the race where one can be human.” Having shared fragility and resiliency and have never asked for proof or expressions of affection, they are always simply there for you. There is something palpably always different in the way you bond, in the way you spend your time together — sometimes just being together, sharing joys, loss tears and pain, and laughter. It was never “I” but “we,” whether you hang tough together or hang on to each other, or whether you keep the worst from each other or confess. There’s never showing off that subtly, restrained respect and sharing of the minds.
And to be taken into the folds of AJP is a homage and a lifetime debt of gratitude and self-worth.
We find plenty of reasons to be thankful, including moms, grandchildren, teachers, music, second chances, American citizenship, the thrill of a blissful newfound set of diligent helpmates in the photo world.
Today there is awareness that it is not simply the time for parades and fancy home-cooked meals, but time to get together with our friends and families for that happily anticipated warm and happy times.
Thanksgiving is gratitude and appreciation of life as it is an acceptance of much in life that we can not understand, learning how to celebrate life until you find the unknown blessing is in everything.
Have a blessed Thanksgiving, gentle readers!
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E-mail Mylah at [email protected].
