Thanksgiving happens in just a few days, and as we approach this holiday, I think of two different things:
1. What does it mean to be thankful?
2. How do you live your life as fully as possible?
When I think about being thankful, I remember a Thanksgiving Day when I visited my great-aunt in a nursing home. She was a former public-school teacher. She was married, but she and her husband never had any children. So, she took it upon herself to make a difference in the lives of others. When I graduated from high school, she gave me the gift of $1,000 towards my secondary education. She did the same thing for all of her great-nieces and nephews. Maybe $1,000 today doesn’t seem like much money, but back then, it was a huge sum. That $1,000 made a big difference in all of our lives. It reduced some of the pressure because we were all financing part or all of our continuing education.
Her husband passed away, and some years later, she was in a nursing home. I remember that Thanksgiving, because one of the staff asked me if I would like to feed my aunt her meal. I hadn’t realized how much she had changed, both physically and mentally, but I remember how I felt because I was able to have this moment with her after she had helped me so much in my life. I was able to humbly and respectfully assist her simply by feeding her a Thanksgiving Day meal. I don’t know if she even knew who I was, but I knew who she was. I remembered the impact she made on my life, the lives of others in my family, and probably the lives of hundreds of students she had taught over the years. It’s about being thankful for those people who were part of our lives and made a difference.
Many years ago, our family went to a Thanksgiving Day meal at my in-laws’ in the small town where I grew up. We were having appetizers and patiently waiting for my sister-in-law’s husband to arrive. He comes from a multi-generational family of farmers. Once he arrived, I asked him how things were on the farm and what had caused the delay. He said he had been visiting his Grandpa Paul at the nursing home. I knew who his grandfather was, so I asked him how he was doing. He said Paul was exhausted. I asked why, and he said that Grandpa Paul had been “baling hay all day long”. In Grandpa Paul’s mind, he was doing what he had always done—baling hay. I told my brother-in-law this is why we both need to live life as fully as possible, travel, and have as many experiences as we can because if we were going to be stuck inside our minds later in life, I personally want to be wandering the streets of Venice, Italy, instead of baling hay.
As we approach Thanksgiving, think of the people who have come before you, the people you should be thankful for because of the difference they made in your life. Think also, about having a full life for yourself and your loved ones. Are you taking the time to create experiences that will be remembered after time and busy calendars have passed by? What kind of legacy and memory will you leave behind?
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Enjoy your family. Enjoy your friends. Enjoy the extra time off.
