Different Times, Different Thanks

It’s amazing  how much the parameters of being thankful has changed; so many lives have been needlessly lost and brutally taken in the last 330 days – most of them acts of hatred and certainly violence. It feels as if there are no safe places to turn to anymore, nowhere that you can go that gives the reassurance of eternal safety and well-being.

It shouldn’t be commonplace to always feel paranoid and uneasy; certainly not at colleges and schools where we send our children to learn, they should never have to feel unsafe. Movie theaters that should provide joy and entertainment, and churches which should be the holy grail of safety and love, no longer automatically fit those descriptions. And now, in Paris, that list also includes cafes, outdoor soccer games, and music concerts.

But this morning, I woke-up to sparkling sunshine in my bedroom window that I hadn’t seen is days, and my 20 year old son Zach, parading around the house shirtless and in his old Robert F Munroe gym shorts and his “favorite” hunting hat he found last night, as he unearthed all of his hunting garb and declared it a miracle, as he had previously thought it was lost.

I’m not a morning person at all, I mean I’m not grouchy or mean, I just have nothing to say for the first hour or so. But if anybody can drag you out of silence and into laughter, it’s him. Because as he was parading – I interrupted long enough to ask him to strip his bed before he left the house for TCC – as it was linen washing day. His reply was “Oh I’ll strip those sheets lady, and I’ll strip them with a smile, and do you know why? Because it’s Duck Hunting Eve day, that’s why!”  

It’s been a sad week for me. As I have told you before, I tend to get caught up in other people’s sadness, and watching the television from dawn til dusk, and all the Paris coverage in between did not help matters any for me. I’m 52 years old and I still haven’t learned to constructively compartmentalize information sometimes.

But this morning I was reminded once again, that besides all the things we are thankful for everyday: food, shelter, employment, family and friends, and our health – I am the most thankful for the humor in which my entire family is overly blessed.

Both my mother and my daddy have passed down their own brand of humor to both me and my children, and I was lucky enough to find a husband who is equally blessed. Laughter can get you through almost anything in life, even if it happens at what some would consider inopportune moments i.e.; I believe death almost demands humor for the survivors.

I hope we can all find the laughter within ourselves, remember the love we have for one another and cherish our family and friends as we celebrate another year of Thanksgiving. To get through hard times, we use whatever it is we have – and I choose love, laughter and family.