I don’t remember much about Thanksgiving when I was a child, except for the year I helped ruin a Thanksgiving program at school, which I have mentioned before. I know I didn’t want to be an Indian in the program, but the irony is the Native Americans were the essential part. Native Americans had celebrations where they shared the harvest and gave thanks long before Europeans arrived. Without those Native Americans, there would have been no Thanksgiving. However, I do remember many years of Thanksgiving as an adult.
For several years when my parents had a house in Florida, we would go down there and spend the entire week. Mark and I took the opportunity to learn scuba diving, taking classes and diving on many of our trips. That is also the only time I played golf. I’m sure the residents down there thought we were the Clampetts. If you remember the Allstate commercials where they were trying to protect you from mayhem, they were talking about us. We dinged up quite a few roofs and took out one glass table on someone’s deck. I think I spent more time hunting for golf balls than I did hitting them. But, it was always a great time together as a family.
The most memorable Thanksgiving for me, though, was in 1985. Cheryl was pregnant with Jennifer and two weeks past her due date. The night before Thanksgiving, she thought she was having contractions, and we went to the hospital. After several hours there, they decided it was not quite her time, so we got back home in time to get a few hours sleep before the Thanksgiving meals started. I don’t recall if we went to my family’s first or hers, but we had two huge Thanksgiving banquets that day. By the end of the day, we were stuffed. Twice. We were also completely worn out and ready for a good night’s sleep. That was not meant to be. A few minutes after we got in bed, her water broke. So, we get dressed and head back to the hospital. Jennifer was born five hours later. They say there are days in a person’s life defined by a few events – events so significant that your life is somewhat defined as your life before the event and your life after it. This was undoubtedly one of those events.
Of course, I did not immediately know the highs and lows that were to come, but I did begin to understand some things. I understood how part of my heart was now beating in another’s body. I now knew a parent’s love and could now relate to how much my parents loved me. Those things are significant and a cause for giving thanks.
I tend to think of Thanksgiving as a single word that represents a couple of days off work. But, we really should think of it as Thanks Giving. As the Shawnee Chief Tecumseh said: “When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself.”