Thankful

I am thankful. I really am. The holiday weekend was full of family activity; too much food, 10 year old grandson jokes, Ken and Claiborne’s baskets full of pretty things and pies and waggedy tails, and my niece with her 9 week old princess. My baby boy (now 27)held her, awkwardly at best - one of the few pictures without 10 year old fingers in front of the camera.

I still have the shingles, can’t sleep for the pain, slipped and fell flat on my tu-tu cracking my neck, and didn’t have a working oven for turkey or bread…my favorite smell’s this time of year. But I did have a tea party my Emma grandest-daughter hosted - without asking mom. It was so worth going. She asked me later at the big 84th birthday dinner for my Dad, “Tell me how my tea party made you feel. Was it refreshing?”

Sometime that day the phone rang, Tessa’s husband calling from Bagdad – he’s in the heavy artillery unit – been there five weeks. She is brave for him – she hears it in his voice though – the longing to be home that waivers across the airway – thousands of miles away yet so intimately near. It fills me with tears – tears of gratitude for others who gave over this past two centuries or so to make this nation what it is - something that makes selfless men out of selfish young boys.

Bill prayed so elegantly – we forget what America has done for the world – we wouldn’t forget if Hitler had won. I am thankful. I really am.