Hello, here in the US, it is Thanksgiving. Three years ago on this day, I was just coming to the end of six months of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, treatment for breast cancer. I remember it like it was yesterday.
On the last day of radiation, I couldn't stop crying with relief. I cried under the radiation machine, during the counseling session afterward, the the bathrooms after that, and at the celebratory lunch with my friend when she gave me a “graduation” gift. The gratitude I felt simply to be alive and free to start my life over again was overwhelming.
Every day I fill in a gratitude journal. Three things that I'm grateful for. Nearly every day I write “being effortlessly alive” as one of them. I have been fortunate not to have been personally affected by the pandemic aside from having COVID earlier in the year. Dare I say that I've actually enjoyed lockdown. Time to be at home with my family, safe, warm, bellies full. healthy. Being effortlessly alive.
But that isn't the case for so many. I know many of you will be alone, missing loved ones – today or forever, not in the greatest of health, experiencing financial worries. Being thankful is hard sometimes. I wish I could wave a wand and make everything better.
At times like these, we dig deep, we adapt, we see silver linings, and count our blessings. Such is the resiliency of our species.
My family normally go to a restaurant for Thanksgiving lunch, but we are staying home this year and ordering in. I'll make a few Yorkshire puds to go along with our turkey and we're trying a cranberry sauce recipe sent to me last year by a reader. Tomorrow we'll go out to get our Christmas tree (after the plumber has been to fix our dripping tap!)
I hope whether you celebrate Thanksgiving or not (and a nod here to Canadians who had their Thanksgiving in October,) you have the best possible day. There is gold to be found in the dirt. Sometimes it takes patience to find it. Hang in there. As Annabelle might say, “Head up, wings out.”
