Getting Real About Giving Thanks
This Thursday will be my 47th Thanksgiving, which means I’ve had a great deal of experience hearing people give thanks for family and health and God.
I’m not questioning their gratitude.
I too am thankful for those gifts.
I’m also thankful for hot showers, coffee, the internet, my car’s heated seats, wine, Netflix and a husband who sends me roses when he knows he’s made me mad. And I’m not going to feel selfish for saying so.
There is, after all, something to be said for heartfelt thanks, such as that expressed by my fourth grade classmates in November 1976.
I re-discovered their gratitude recently when I flipped through a childhood scrapbook and found a booklet from that year.
In those days before word processing, personal computers and printers, my teacher typed her students’ responses to the question “What are you grateful for this Thanksgiving?” Later, she gave each of us a mimeographed copy of our responses.
In reviewing the gratitude in that booklet, I am completely in awe of the wisdom of a group of fourth grade students in a rural community in 1976.
We knew to be thankful for our bicycles and birthdays and toys.
We knew to be thankful for teachers and doctors and friends.
And we even knew to appreciate beauty in the world, the support we gave each other and even ourselves.
Reading the words of a group of children who are now middle-aged adults marked by the scars of experience, I can’t help but smile and recognize something else for which I am extremely grateful.
I will forever be thankful for memories , the people who helped create them and the people who helped preserve them.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Posted on November 24, 2014, in My life, people, perspective and tagged childhood, gratitude, holidays, life, memories, musings, People, perspective, smiles, thanks, Thanksgiving, Thoughts, youth. Bookmark the permalink. 5 Comments.
Just So You Know 
Obviously, we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving in Australia but a friend of mine is married to an American and it’s their second year in Australia and she’s looking at how to do turkey in potentially 40 degree heat. Our Australian Christmas traditions have adapted somewhat to the climate with some going for seafood or cold dishes but we always have a mix of hot and cold and the hot pudding no matter how hot it is. I guess that either makes us stoic or stupid. I’ll be having some medical tests on your thanksgiving and I will have to remind myself to be thankful even if I am feeling otherwise inclined. I will say though as this will be the only thanksgiving I’m likely to have that I’m thankful for my family and my dogs who are with me day in day out and are particularly good company when I’m home sick. Wishing you and yours a Happy & Blessed Thanksgiving! xx Rowena
Trina, I am thankful for having you as a friend who listens to me no matter what!!! We are all so blessed for what we have in our lives!!!
And I am thankful you are my friend!
Trina, I’m just catching up on my mail. As I read this I was reminded of going through some of my old school memorabilia and how telling the responses we gave as children are reflected in the adults we become. I hope that some of your old classmates get to see this and take that trip down memory lane. So I’m thankful I can still remember my past as well as plan and dream for the future.
I often laugh at how mature I thought I was when looking back I was totally clueless!