Thanksgiving Made Special

I have read a lot about "How To Write Better Blogs" and "Ideas To Make Your Blog Better."  Everything says "keep it real" and "be yourself."   So here I am...trying to figure out what to write my post about when all I can think about is what I witnessed today and what all has happened in the past few days.  So here is my "real" week and it is not about decorating or the best sale I got today.  I wish it was.

Sometimes life says OK it is time to put things in perspective.  My mother found out this week that after 34 radiation treatments that her tumor had not shrunk.  That the treatments did not help. Monday she will go into the hospital for more tests.  Is there anything else the doctors can do for her?  I have been very down about it.  This week but today in particular, however, I was reminded how lucky I am to have been blessed to have my mother as long as I have.  

Yesterday one of the teachers at the middle school where I work lost her sister-in-law unexpectedly in a car wreck.  The husband and wife were both in the car.  The son-in-law lives close so he was called and went to the site of the wreck.  As the paramedics were putting the woman in the ambulance she tells her son in law that she is fine (and she looks fine) and how worried she is about her husband.  He is now in intensive care.  By the time the family gets to the hospital the woman has died from internal injuries.   This family is now trying to decided if they should bury the wife without the husband being able to attend or wait till he can get well enough to attend his wife's funeral.  He has massive injuries and lots of broken bones so he will be in the hospital for a while.   

Then today..

As I said I work in the office at a middle school. Today a dad came to pick up his son and had to tell him that his mother had just died unexpectedly. She was 36. The dad had left her in bed this morning..she was sick and not feeling well...he was going to take the kids to school and come back and take her to the doctor.  She was dead when he got back home.  They don't know exactly what happened.  She had been to the doctor the day before and had been told she had an urinary tract infection.  Not only is there a husband and son..she had a daughter who is a freshman in high school.  The Dad told me how distraught his daughter was.  I can not begin to know or imagine what this family is going through. 

All day I have thought about the daughter and the son.  How hard to loose your mother at the point in your life when you need her most.  Those teenage years are so hard.  

Then it hit me as if somebody threw a pot of cold water on me. What was I thinking?  What had I been doing?   I had been feeling sorry for myself and for my mother who has been blessed with a life where she has seen her children grow up, who has held her grand kids and held a great grandchild.  I need to enjoy every day that I still have with my mother and enjoy and cherish each one.  

If  I am lucky in a couple of days I will get to sit down with my family at another Thanksgiving table and eat a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner. Sometime that day I will get a call from my Mom to come "taste test" her stuffing.  Does it have enough onion? Too much sage?  Is it too dry?  Need more stock?  I will get to eat her delicious pumpkin pie that she makes every year.  We will make fun of and laugh about the year that my sister made brownies that were so hard and burnt that even after three days of soaking we had to throw away the pan with the brownies still in it.  We will enjoy each other and I want to sit back and soak it all in.  I want to emblazon each moment in my mind.  

I hope each of you will have a wonderful Thanksgiving and cherish each moment of this holiday.  I want each of you to have the feeling of Thanksgiving that I have today.

I am thankful.