49 Reasons to Be Thankful

Dear Mom and Dad:

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving.  This is the first time – ever?- that you and I won’t be sharing dinner.  I must confess it didn’t hit me until this morning when a friend of mine was talking about her parents coming to her home for Thanksgiving.  She had a coffee with her Dad this morning, she said, and talked about how much she enjoys talking with her Dad.

I don’t feel envious.  I feel like I am in unfamiliar waters.  Thanksgiving will be different without either of you.

Mom, who will Kevin tease when it comes to your stuffing wars?  I still think yours was better – wish I had payed more attention while you were making it.  Maybe I’ll have to make some cranberry sauce like you taught me the last Thanksgiving we shared together.

The image of you looking at Dad, with your head resting on your hand, is forever ingrained into my mind.  The scarf you wore – I gave to Auntie Helen and she brought it here this summer to wear during the Malloff reunion.

Dad, you were always so gracious at these dinners.  You never said much, but, as you would say, “Wisdom is knowing what to say and not saying it anyway.”.  The grace, “Some ha’ meat and canne’ eat – and some can eat but want it – but we ha’ meat and we can eat so let the Lord be thanked” will INDEED be recited tomorrow.

So – it brings me to consider the things for which I am thankful – one for each year of my life would allow me to offer thanks for 49 things.  Here they are:

1. health – and the ability to look forward to good health
2. family who gathers around our dinner table
3. faith – when the going gets tough
4. hope – what would we do without it?
5. freedom
6. friends who still reach out – even though time separates us
7. fall – well, actually, spring
8. history – and being a part of it
9. future – knowing that great things are still yet to come
10. my talents
11. my humility
12. roots
13. a home filled with love and laughter – and sometimes tears
14. education
15. colour – especially in the fall
16. good food
17. the ability to cook
18. my kitchen
19. laughter – sometimes remembering how a joke goes
20. wine – mainly white
21. music – especially Nat King Cole!
22. the ability to play the piano and sing
23. harmony
24. pianos
25. the ability to teach
26. students who love to learn – or learn to love learning
27. learning how to teach better
28. being open minded
29. being a wife
30. to Kevin – my partner, my friend, my inspiration
31. love
32. being a mom to Ben, Katya, and David
33. compassion
34. adulthood
35. photos
36. blogs
37. the ability to write
38. to tell stories
39. to have people who tolerate my stories
40. maple syrup
41. maple trees
42. colourful leaves
43. memories of the farm
44. memories our first home in Collingwood
45. learning to mud and tape from Dad
46. learning to sew – and being able to give up sewing as it is way too frustrating – from Mom
47. midnight talks with Mom
48. midnight talks with Dad
49. holding hands

Happy Thanksgiving to you, Mom and Dad.  We will definitely raise a glass of wine to you and be grateful for all that you have meant to so many!  And I’ll count my blessings.

Here is the “master blessing counter”, Bing!

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qmMaPTuTEE

I am Larger Than a Bread Basket… What Am I?

The “Vase” that stopped a million deaths…

I am larger than a shoe box, but smaller than a piano.

I can hold enough liquid to nourish a giant.

I am blue.

I have a base.

I am “open” at the top.

My lip is smooth.

I am larger in my middle than anyplace else.

I was a gift.

What am I?

If you guessed a giant brandy snifter from the 1960s – you know the decorative ones that you hated as a kid but parents seemed to love – you are right!

I emptied the pot pourri that Mom had had in it for the past 10 years in total.  There was likely a bit of the smelly mixture from 3 years ago, mixed with some from 4 years ago, mixed with some from 10 years ago.  There was no scent left – but she thought it looked pretty.

I washed the vessel carefully.  This startled me – that I was so careful.  My entire life I’ve hated this thing.  It had been the source of angst for me for years as I encouraged Mom to, “get rid of that ugly thing”.  And yet – there I was being so careful.  It’s entire fate was in my hands – is in my hands and I cannot believe that I am treated it so … yes, carefully.

Mom always loved it.  I’m not sure she loved it because of it’s beauty – really, who could love it?  I think she loved it because it was a gift from the people she worked with and loved at the Simcoe Medical Group.  It was a gift to say, “good-bye” to her when she “retired” from nursing.  I parenthesized nursing because she actually never retired  and was often back in the office filling in for nurses that went on holidays or were ill.  She loved these people.  They had grown up with her – and it was these women who also claimed to have trained all the new “green” doctors who, at that time, were just beginning their careers.

I turned the thing upside down to dry and stared at it.  Like the Pier One Import commercial, the stupid thing seemed to speak to me.

“Stacey, I have so many stories to tell you.  I have been in your life for so long – just sitting and observing.  I watched as your Dad received news about the death of his Dad… I watched as your parents received news about the birth of their first grand-daughter, Megan, then JJ, then Ben, then Katya, and then David.  I watched as your Mom and Dad celebrated with their friends during summer swims, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, and Valentine’s Day.  When we moved to the condo I was moved to the bedroom where I saw as your Dad rose in the morning and retired at night.  I watched as your Mom nursed him back to health from pneumonia, from his stroke, from his hip surgery, and then throughout his Parkinson’s.  I was there, Stacey.  I am a part of their lives.  Finally, I watched as your Dad took his final breath.  I was with you – and I’m with you now.”

Okay – so the Pier One Import commercial may not have their things speaking exactly that intimately – but, crap, that ugly blue bowl suddenly became important to me.  It got to me.  It is staring at me right now as it dries upside down in the sink.

What do I do with it?  How can I dispose of this “treasure” that Mom loved so much?  It’s big and it’s blue!!!!  For Heaven’s sake.  Do I put it beside the samovar – or the type-writer or Dad’s straw hat?

Good grief.

I am larger than a bread – basket but smaller than a piano.

I am sometimes blue with grief and sometimes red with anger.

My main role in this family is “Mom” and to my husband I am “wife”.

I have a heart larger than life and a memory shorter than a snail is fast.

What am I?

…A sucker for sentiment.