A storm has just passed.
At the edge of what was once a nicely manicured suburban lawn, a man stands and draws his family around him. He is wet, somewhat disheveled; he wears a Notre Dame T-shirt which is slightly ripped and clings to his body from the rain. Inside his mind, he is constantly, incessantly counting the heads of his family. “All here,” he keeps reassuring himself, “All here.” His young daughter holds her favorite doll limply; the doll appears as dazed and listless as the little girl holding it. To him, his wife looks radiant and strong, but he can see just behind her eyes that she is ready to crumble. The dog runs around the yard blissfully, with what the man recognizes as part of a leg from what was once the dining room table in its mouth. A twenty-dollar bill lies on the lawn, flapping lightly in the post-storm breeze, rendered as unimportant and valueless as the rest of the debris around it.
Finally, he takes a deep breath and speaks. “We are so lucky,” he says.
This, to me, is the essence of Thanksgiving.
Most of us, when we think about being “lucky”, think about things like making the subway just before the doors close, or being narrowly missed by a flaming chunk of SkyLab as it drops out of the sky. There is very little that is lucky about your house being in the direct path of an EF-4 tornado. That’s actually quite unlucky, to be honest. And yet, we hear this sort of thing time and time again. Whenever our illusions of safety and control have been swept aside, people whose whole lives have just been turned upside-down gather what is precious to them and proclaim their good fortune.
If we have one another, if we have our very lives, if we have tomorrow and a chance to begin again, then we have what we need. All the rest is just “stuff.”
So, today, as you bow your head and pray, or meditate, or notice that your fly is undone, whatever it is you do on Thanksgiving Day to make it solemn, be thankful for the turkey and the green bean casserole, to be sure. But start here: Be thankful for what is really precious in your life. Gather it all close to you, throw a proverbial blanket around yourselves, and imagine that you’re all you’ve got left. Then remember how lucky you really are.
Give thanks for that.
