What do you say you're thankful for when everything has gone to crap? I'm not an inspirational suffering person like Job in the Bible or the people in feel-good stories on The Today Show, and in the grand scheme of how brutal life can get, I haven't suffered that much. Still, when I try to think about thankfulness, my mind and soul go immediately to bitterness and sarcasm. What am I thankful for? People who help you make decisions about dog euthanasia? Antidepressants? Credit cards? Meeting my health insurance deductible twice in the span of three months? Not having to juggle time with in-laws during the holidays? Not having to go further into debt to buy Christmas presents for children? I really am thankful for those things; I just don't feel like I can say any of them around the Thanksgiving dinner table.
After some rage-vacuuming and a long rainy walk, I've come up with a modest list of things I'm sincerely thankful for. It involved reaching, at times, deeply into the past and hopefully into the future, which I guess may be the answer when you can't say anything too gracious about the present. I'll share it for anyone who's feeling similarly downtrodden, apathetic, or cynical during this festive season of the year:
-I'm thankful for a mom who taught me to love plants and animals and who taught me all the things people who love plants and animals do.
-I'm thankful for a dad who used used his lunch break from January to June to drive to my house and feed Max the Dog lunch, who mowed my lawn all summer and fall, and who drops everything in his busy life to help me any time I need it.
-I'm deeply grateful that both of my parents came with me to say goodbye to my boys. I do most things alone and take great pride in that, but I'm so glad I didn't have to do that alone.
-I'm thankful for friends who stay your friends when you're catatonic for two months, who make an effort to get people together, and who live far away but make sure we stay in touch.
-I'm thankful for nephews who like to throw rocks and nephews who have yet to be born.
-I'm thankful that I grew up in a house full of siblings, and that soon, we'll be able to be together in our family's very own fixed up, post-flood home.
-I'm thankful for cousins who dropped food on my doorstep twice this summer when they knew I wouldn't feel like making the effort to feed myself.
-I'm thankful that I said yes to trying some new things at a new job this year, allowing me to become "Coach Clegg" to an incredible group of girls and to work one-on-one with some other awesome students during two periods of the day.
-I'm thankful that when I was 21, I said yes to a puppy named Elvis, and that when I was 26, I said yes again to a puppy named BJ.
-I'm thankful that I bought them a house with a yard, however modest and falling-apart it may be now.
-I'm thankful for the appliances in that house that still work, and for the ones that are able to be repaired for under $1000.
-I'm thankful that I kept my 2008 promise to Max that he would never spend another holiday in a kennel. That promise brought me home to some of my beloved family members in their final years, close to my cousins, parents, and siblings (for a little while), and into the paths of many treasured friends I've met since then.
-I'm thankful that Joni at least still acknowledges me at mealtimes and at bedtime, and I'm thankful that she finally got her poor little teeth worked on.
-Finally, I'm thankful for this worn spot on my once-nice couch, the brown faded to tan by years of nervous licking, the more offensive toenail gouges covered by classy strips of brown duct tape, and I'm thankful for this mischievous black puppy who showed up to fill it when it was emptied far too soon. I'm thankful for the perspective, hard-won through trauma and grief, that allows me to love and enjoy him in all his moments of foolishness.
Happy Thanksgiving- no matter where you are or what you have to be thankful for, even if it's simply the knowledge that good times eventually follow the bad ones.
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