Finding reason to give thanks

Which image do you think reflects what is happening in America this year?

Is it the first with a big family saving a seat for you with a table full of food? Is it the second one when a solider has returned home? Or is it the third one when a woman is alone clearly using the coat of a soldier to keep warm?

When we think the rest of the country will spend Thanksgiving Day with much to be thankful for, it makes our lives pretty depressing if we do not have the ability to celebrate the day the same way.  It is hard to find reasons to be thankful at all.

When we read about foreclosures, it is hard to take comfort knowing we are close to it ourselves.  There is no hope in more joining us suffering than getting out of the suffering.  Read about people losing their jobs, running out of unemployment, losing all they worked hard for, and it is nearly impossible to avoid thinking that we could end up the same way.

So what is it about us that makes some of us rise about whatever hardship we encounter? What makes some of us so different?  Norman Rockwell found that something and he used that gift to help others see not only what is wrong but inspire what is possible so that the hopeless find reason to hope again.

When we read about veterans suffering because of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, it is easy to feel hopeless.  After all, given how long this has taken a toll on the men and women fighting our battles, we realize that we've only taken baby steps to address this wound.  Read about suicides and those reports replace the one you read about a few days before about a veteran coming home, feeling that hopeless, but ending up rising above all of it to stand as a testament of the human spirit, healing and helping others.

Read about a veteran in jail and you forget that another state has added Veterans' Courts so they are taken care of properly.

Read about anything bad and it is easy to forget anything good.  Life is like that too.  If we think of what we don't have, we stop seeing what we do have to be grateful for.

My family by blood are all gone now.  My Dad passed away in 1987, then I lost one of my brothers, followed by Mom and then another brother.  My husband's family are all gone as well. My daughter is moving back home, so this is a really sad Thanksgiving for us but it isn't as sad as last year.  My dog was  very sick and we knew he wouldn't be with us much longer.  We didn't want to leave him, so it was just the three of us watching over our dog.  This year we're going to have dinner with friends.  A Vietnam vet my husband served with and his wife invited us over and we are grateful they did.  We know what feeling lonely can do when you have memories of family and friends who used to share your life.

While they are gone now and so is my dog, I love the memories I have of them and grateful for the time we had together.  What a blessing they all were to my life.  I am grateful for friends still close no matter how many years have passed.  Grateful for the daughter, my joy, who graduated with a Bachelor's Degree and is already making her mark as an adult.  Yet I am most grateful for the man I married over 26 years ago and the fact he has lived with PTSD since he came home from Vietnam.  How many obstacles  he's overcome, hardships, heartaches and sleepless nights, they are impossible to measure but just as hard as it is to measure his suffering, it is even more impossible to measure the strength of his character, the quality of his heart and the spirit of his soul.

I can look back at all the pain that has come into our lives but that would rob me of the memories of all the joys we share.  We can all look at what we lack this year, but then we lose memories of what we once had and that takes away the hope that better days are possible.  When we think of all of it, we can even find things to be thankful for even in hardships.  After all the Pilgrims didn't have it so good when they celebrated their day of giving thanks but they were grateful for what they did have.  They must have thought about the people they left back in England, the people who died on the ships and those who perished that first harsh winter but even they found reason to be thankful.  If they did, so can all of us.