Thanksgiving and gratitude

It is now Thanksgiving Eve! Let the feasting begin. I'm grateful to have food and also family and friends to share it with. It hasn't always been that way. I've spent a couple Thanksgivings alone and without much to eat. It wasn't as traumatic as some would have it. I am not stuck on what isn't, I'm more into being OK with what I've got. Happiness is often a choice and I choose it whenever it's even remotely possible.


For decades it has been one of my Thanksgiving traditions to get up early and go visit a bunch of old guys who, due to various circumstances are now living alone with no one coming to visit other than me. I bring cheap novelty gifts, a couple sleeves of pennies and a deck of cards. We chat, laugh at the novelty gifts and play cards for an hour or so before I move on to the next old guy and repeat the scenario. My visits stretch from 4:30am until about 1:00pm and then it's family, food and football. Of course I maintain contact with these old gents throughout the year but it seems that it is on Thanksgiving that they enjoy the most. As time goes on locations have changed and the logistics do not allow for the usual personal visit, in which case we carry on a phone conversation for an hour or so. They do most of the talking. Old guys are like that. If it's not an old joke I've heard a dozen times before, it's some rule of wisdom they feel the need to impart upon my naïve shoulders or for some reason they need to confess one of their past indiscretions and follow up with an apology to me as a surrogate for whomever it concerned at the time. It is time well spent for me and also the person I am with. We've found that we need each other. To me, that is a gift beyond anything I deserve. Sure, I've helped these guys by simply being a non-judgmental friend, but the life experiences they've shared with me have brought me to a level of acceptance and maturity and faith that I would may never have achieved on my own. I am grateful to these guys.


Happy Thanksgiving! Please pass that on to any crotchety, grouchy, gassy, forgetful, thankless, almost unlovable old guy you know. It just may change their life for the better,