When Thanksgiving rolls around it’s easy to say that you are grateful for the usual.
I get it. I do it.
I’m grateful for my adorable kids and the husband who always remembers my birthday and my family that surrounds me like a warm glove or my job where I am loved and appreciated and given a card on my birthday.
But before the turkey is even picked off the bone, those kids have been banished to the basement and you are griping at the husband because you remember he’s off the next day to his doctor’s appointment while you have to move mountains and confer with five people to schedule yourself an appointment, and your brother has brought up the fact that you are NOT your mother’s favorite…again.
You are not grateful for that.
And that job, well, honestly, you want to throttle your managers who also happen to be half your age but treat YOU like you’re two.
You are not grateful for that either.
So this season let’s get down to brass tacks; let’s give you something you can sink your teeth into this November. This Thanksgiving, let’s talk about something that’s awesome beyond debate even on a bad day.
You are alive.
You are breathing.
Right now.
Thank God.
Your brain is working and the wonderful mechanism of being alive is in play as you sit in front of your computer. You have the option and the luxury of one more day.
If you don’t have a great family, you have the ability to make yourself one or to find one.
If you don’t have a great job you can still get one; you can go to college, you can start over anytime you want.
If you don’t have good friends, your living breathing body enables you to start today forming friendships and learning how to give, so you too can get.
If your kids are beastly or you can’t stand them or you don’t have the ones you want yet, these also are things that you can work on, all because you are ALIVE.
I repeat, you are ALIVE and isn’t that enough?
And if you are alive then isn’t anything possible?
A 96 year old ran the New York marathon yesterday; a baby learned to walk; a child learned to read; a college student fell in love; a beautiful piece of art was created; a woman, somewhere had a baby.
What my father wouldn’t give for one more day; or my high school crush Andy Wells, a gentle soul who left way too soon; or Mrs. Cary, who had more life in her left pinky then most people do in their entire being; or Melissa Rosenberg who left behind a loving gaggle of girls that would give thirteen thanksgivings just to have her breath one more breath in their presence; or an awesome guy named Carter I knew who was larger than life but isn’t living anymore; or a gentle man I knew named Jim who just died today and would have given anything to be there for his beloved wife for one more minute; or my best friend’s mother Ronnie who never met a stranger and considered me family from the first time she met me.
This year in honor of all the people who don’t get the luxury of one more breath or the joy of beautiful life – giving red blood pumping through their veins or the capacity to speak, scream, breathe, memorize, cry, laugh, or learn, let’s take a deep breath and be grateful for just that because it’s more than enough.
About Rebecca Suder