Gratitude

Every year in this country we celebrate Thanksgiving Day, and it is understood that we all take a few moments to specify what we each are thankful for in our lives at this juncture. My husband is a therapist who often works with the disenfranchised, with people whose endurance has been severely tested, either physically due to illness, abuse or a terrible accident, or emotionally and mentally. He puts things always in stark perspective for us each Thanksgiving Day. To have a warm roof over your head, a warm bed to sleep in, enough food, to live in a country that is not war torn, where you have access to education, health care, and a decent chance at a job, where you can speak your mind without the risk of imprisonment, beatings and torture, where you can vote for your leader in free elections, puts you ahead of the majority of people on this planet. My husband grew up with an abusive father, but he had a chance to get away and get a college education. I grew up with a manipulative alcoholic mother but I too had a chance to get away and get a university degree. I live as a woman in a country where women have equal rights, especially now that President Obama is re-elected, and as a woman in this country we do not have to worry about the clock being turned back 50 years on women's rights. I am 55 years old, and have always lived in a peaceful country, in Belgium where I lived until I was 19, and then ten years in Texas, and now 25 years in Washington State. My parents remembered bombings during WWII, and my deceased father in law fought in the Pacific during the second World War, and in the Korean War. Wars are stories I heard, or footage I see on TV. If that is not cause to be grateful, it certainly should. Millions of people go hungry every day, many of them children. Even here in Olympia there are children who go to bed hungry and go to school on an empty stomach. To sit down to a delicious Thanksgiving meal courtesy of my gourmet cook husband, is a blessing and a reason to be thankful for love and abundance. I grew up in luxury, but my parents destroyed our family with their bitter marriage, leaving nothing but death and dust in their tracks, and emptiness in our hearts. The Holidays are often a challenge to me emotionally speaking because I cannot believe that a family that had everything tore at itself until there was nothing left. That left a hole in my heart that I have learned to live with, a wound that will never truly heal. But I always manage to shake those under the floor blues with the spiritual guidance of our wise Pastor at my church, and the love and devotion from my solid as the rock of Gibraltar husband and my wonderful son. Our home is small and crowded at a 1000 square feet and two cats and a big dog, and one bathroom, but I feel so fortunate when I realize all the blessings our little house holds, and the gladness I experience at having found a new family with my husband and son, and appreciating that gift that grew out of destruction and despair. Gratitude I have come to learn, also has to do with humility. Humility allows you to fully appreciate your blessings because it shows you how fortunate you are in that you do have what you need. Some people have everything and still want what their neighbor has. A humble heart is often wise, and often happy. Gratitude means you are learning what you need to learn in this life, in this destiny, and you are thankful for the help and mercy along the way.