What to Be Thankful For

It’s all about everyone else

Seance by my recently departed father, a large two-piece canvas paying homage to family painted with love and a wish to carry memory forward.

This is an updated version of an essay I wrote in 2021. There have been significant changes in my life since, particularly the loss of my father, a man of great intelligence and talent with ethics guided by a deep commitment to fairness and integrity. All he wanted to do in life was paint and teach, and his belief in the importance of education was deep. He never intended to become an administrator, but the injustice he experienced and witnessed as a faculty member drove him up the ladder. Perhaps most demonstrative of his commitment to justice was getting fired from an art and design college presidency when he deferred faculty raises to budget a non-existent computer graphics lab and give the janitor who worked three jobs a substantial raise. That sat poorly with the wealthy board of directors which included Betsy DeVos, the future Secretary of Education in Trump’s first administration and got him fired.

Me? I was quite proud of him.

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Much of what I write about is difficult. I am deeply concerned with the health of our planet and the health of human society. There are days when I feel sad about what I see and know. We all have anxiety, and we all need to take a break and breathe out. Thanksgiving is the holiday to do that, but first I would like to recognize Native Americans. This is not a holiday of thanks for them, but rather a reminder of all that was taken. Lives, land and culture. Everything. Let’s hold them in our thoughts and grow from their wisdom that teaches reverence for the natural world and recognizes animals have power and spirits just as we do, and an equal right to life on earth.

My list won’t be perfect. Many of the blessings I take comfort in others can’t because they’re less fortunate. As we think of our own blessings, let’s pause to remember the children who don’t have enough to eat, and the homeless and countless people in the world who suffer at the hands of greed-driven cruelty.

With those things in mind, I am most thankful for the people who love me. I am thankful to have parents who sacrificed and have my back to this day. I am thankful for being provided a foundation which gave me a chance to succeed. I am keenly aware of the gift they have been.

I am thankful for people I have lost. The painting by my father above is about them, the family I was fortunate to know growing up. My memory of them fills and informs who I am today.

I am thankful for the people who have forgiven me. I have committed my share of selfish, foolish acts, and those who stayed by my side are treasures I have tried to learn from. When you’re forgiven, it’s an opportunity to embrace humility and grow from experience. Many have granted me lenience in my life and I love them all, but have one friend in particular who had every right to cast me aside. She knows who she is, and I will never be able to repay her generosity that gave me a second chance.

I am thankful for my sister and brother-in-law, two of the most generous people I could be honored to know. They embody the ideal of helping others, even taking others in crisis into their home. A few years ago, when I had a serious health issue, they were there for me. They make my world and those of others a better place.

I am thankful for my daughter. I hope time will make us closer and that I can help her realize her amazing talent as a writer and artist. It’s profoundly difficult to be an aware young person in this world now. It’s incredibly difficult to give advice in the dire circumstances we have created as climate change and overshoot threaten our future. She and your children and grandchildren deserved to be handed a better world.

I am thankful for new opportunities. Life without opportunity is a tragedy. So many live without opportunity. It’s important to realize the difference between the luck of privilege and hard work. Many people work harder than you and I to merely survive. That janitor. We owe our best to these people.

I am thankful for artists, writers and musicians. They are the recorders of history, deep philosophers of our future and embody of the best of being human. Without thinkers and creativity we wouldn’t have joy or hope. Our souls would be lost.

I am thankful for people who trust me to share their fears and problems. I had a friend with cancer. He reached out. With others, it was my job to support him. He battled for years, never losing his appreciation of what was good. In remission, he competed in a triathlon. Bobby is gone now, but he boosted me with his inclusion. His strength left others stronger. It was a deep honor and example to be followed.

I am thankful for people of other cultures, perhaps especially those with the lilting island accents. Those accents bring sunshine to life even during the endlessly gray days of February in the Northeast. I have a friend who is Haitian. She was a caregiver, a nurse practitioner, always in school, now a psychologist. When we spent time together we could feel the eyes. A white man and a black woman are still unacceptable to many. I fear for her as racist ICE agents imprison and deport people of color. It’s shameful and unforgivable.

I am thankful for bicycles, mountains, and countless hours spent in nature. Such days filled my soul and revealed fundamental truths. I am thankful for clambering over rocks, hushed beds of pine needles under my feet, deep reflection in lakes and views from high. I am thankful for sweating, suffering and succeeding. I am thankful for living in the present because in reality the present is all we have.

I am thankful for the pets I have had, the simplicity, honesty and love of those relationships. I am thankful for wild animal sightings — the stretched wings of herons in furtive Adirondack ponds, and the skunk family I paused for on a bicycle ride, waddling behind mama, crossing a favorite secret road. I’m thankful for the chipmunk that tirelessly ran my 60-foot-long rock wall from sunrise to sunset every summer, her cheeks stuffed to ensure her family’s future through bitter Galway, NY winters. When she paused to rest, standing with her eyes closed facing the sun, I knew what she felt and what I feel are the same, when the sun gazes my face.

I am thankful for my amazing luck to be here and enjoy my short life on this planet of infinite beauty and wonder. We’ll never have another. I am thankful to have had the opportunity to grow and love. I still make mistakes, but hopefully fewer. There’s someone I should apologize to right now. Pride has no place. As I age, I wish to leave something good behind, even if it’s just a few words that carry meaning for a single person. Perhaps they can ripple like the flat stone I skimmed over a still pond thirty years ago, ancient in its knowledge, the twilight sun sparkling gold on the water, glinting through silhouetted gently swaying cattails, lilacs sweetening the air, and bubbles rising to the surface from the curious small mouth bass that bumped at my belly floating in a tube the day before, wanting to know if I was tasty, just before the frogs chanted their nightly, dusky serenade of love. I will likely never know.

This I do know. Those that are destructive are the ones who have been the most bereft of love.

Our future starts in our hearts. Show your appreciation of someone today. Every day. Happy Thanksgiving, and thank you for reading my work.