Thanksgiving

I am thankful for my son's life. Thanks to God for giving Kevin a chance to live his life.
I have been haunted by Thanksgiving since I was 14 years old. I recall that on Thanksgiving in 1970, announcing from my customary backseat-right position on the way to my grandparents for dinner, that I had nothing to be thankful for. 3 days later, my grandfather died, unexpectedly, at age 61. Of course, I felt responsible. I still do. But the episode taught me that my thinking or feeling something does not make it right, and that focusing on my problems obscures appreciation of my (considerable) blessings. And it taught me to remember these lessons, so easy to forget or rationalize away, on Thanksgiving. Now, I am haunted by my mistakes - my failings as a parent chief among them, along with the cavalier self-pity demonstrated so long ago from the backseat of my family's car, which might have had something to do with those failings (and many others). This year, more than any other, I feel real thanksgiving - for my mother and brother, my kids and their love, my wife and her love, true friends, partners who respect and protect me, Ashes. But now, too, for my faith in God, the joy which comes with it, and maybe even something else which comes with faith - the loss of a bit of that focus on self.