Let's Not Call Thanksgiving Off

Let’s not call Thanksgiving off. Knee-deep in masks and funerals and sickness and grief piled on top of grief—we did not cancel Thanksgiving. We’ve all got a lot on our plates. And looking back on my own journey Thanksgiving came whether I was depressed or had the blahs or diverted myself with a book, TV, or Netflix or the ball game. And Thanksgiving came anyway. Some times I totally missed it.

I picked up a little book years ago. Interesting title I thought. 365 Thank Yous by someone I had never heard of, John Kralik. He opens up his own heart and tells a powerful story. A lawyer with a passel of clients that just did not pay. He had run out of money. He was struggling through a painful second divorce. Distant from his kids. Living in a tiny apartment cold in winter and hot in summer. He was 40 pounds overweight and his new girlfriend had just ditched him. His dearest life dreams seemed to have slipped away. 

Trudging alone on a mountains trail he suddenly thought of the thank you note his ex-girlfriend had sent him thanking him for his Christmas gift. It made his day.  So still on that path he thought what if I wrote a couple of thank you notes to people who have made a difference to me along the way.

So he started to write two or three thank you notes. He mused: What if I wrote a note every day to somebody out there who helped him along? After he started he decided to try to write a thank you note every day of the year. He said it took him longer than a year to write 365 notes—but finally he finished. Guess what? Thanksgiving began to come into this man in all his desperation. Thinking and thanking more people than he imagined had changed his life. Thanksgiving came and he wrote this book. 

He said he just wrote simple notes not too long. He wrote to people he had not thought about in years. And gratitude changed his life. Not all happy endings for all his troubles but he was turned inside out. And Thanksgiving came.

I love the Neil Young song when he sings:

“One of these days, I’m going to sit

down and write a long letter

To all the good friends I’ve known

I’m going to try and thank them all for

the good times together

Though so apart we’ve grown…

One of these days, one of these days

One of these days it won’t be 

long, it won’t be long.”

Turn off the TV. Give yourself a time out. Maybe not Thanksgiving Day but maybe the next day or the next. But some time to sit and remember them and how empty the days might have been without them. Let’s not call Thanksgiving off. Who knows what it just might do to us all?

--RogerLovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com