I am Thankful

Sometimes living life gets in the way of writing about the life that I live.

And sometimes the job for which I am paid interferes with the job that I love, but for which I receive no compensation.

I haven’t been able to find the time to write for several days, so permit me just a short Thanksgiving Day memory.

It has become a tradition for me to ask everyone at the dinner table on Thanksgiving Day to name the things for which they are thankful.  It is not a terribly imaginative tradition, I know, but it really was an accident.  I asked one year purely out of curiosity and with no intention of continuing, but now I almost always hear someone from the younger generation comment, “You’re not really going to ask us again this year?  Are you?  Are you?”

So, I asked David early in the day, knowing that in all likelihood he would not be sitting around the dinner table with us.  I asked him with a sort of smug satisfaction, envisioning the school paper hanging on the refrigerator, the paper with the writing prompt, “I am thankful for…” and David had written in his still unsteady hand, “Mom—Dad.”

I asked the question with confidence.  Confident of his answer.  “David, what are you thankful for?”

And then, his answer.  It was as immediate as it was emphatic.  “GINNIE,” which, of course, is David’s name for himself.

As is so often the case, David had surprised me again.  My response was also instantaneous.

So am I, Ginnie.  So am I.