On Being Grateful and Gracious

Hi all,

This will be my last blog before Thanksgiving as tomorrow morning, I'll be on a train headed to Northern Virginia.  I'm excited to see my children and cook our side dishes together.  I'm also excited to share our Thanksgiving meal with my sister and her children in Maryland.  

I wish you a beautiful Thanksgiving with your loved ones and safe travels if you'll be on the road!

I love traveling by train.  Not only do I love the beautiful West Virginia and Virginia countryside, it's a great way to people watch.  I'm not a stalker, believe me!  I just enjoy observing and listening to people, wondering what their story is as I sit quietly, enjoying the views.  More than once, I've built characters on people I've watched and listened to.  I watch their body language, how they interact with others and their facial expressions as they converse. People are fascinating to me :)

I'll be cooking side dishes with my son and my daughter in her home while watching the Thanksgiving Day parade in NYC and in the afternoon, we drive to Maryland to share Thanksgiving dinner with my youngest sister and her kids.  We always have a great time when we get together and this Holiday should be no different.  We laugh and joke while we get dinner and the table ready, we take photos of each other and the kids as a group, we start dinner off with a prayer and I always ask my family to say what they're thankful for.

That Thanksgiving tradition might be getting old for our kids who range in age from 27 to 21, (maybe it's already old for them!) but I never tire of it.  To me, it's important to give thanks and NOT only on this day.  I believe that the root of happiness and joy is in the giving to others and not in the receiving.  This year, I got a surprise that changed my mind a bit.

My family is blessed and we know we are.  We've all had difficulties, faced challenges and found ourselves in the deep valleys before.  Most of us have come out of those valleys into the sunshine.  I hope you have, too.  When I've found myself in the dark, I only have to look around me and listen - there's always someone who needs help, my help.

In the past, it was me who was the helper whenever I could.  This year, I received many blessings and realized that for once, I was the person other's thought needed help.  That came as a big surprise to me as a self-sufficient, stubborn, single Mom!  I like to think that I've got all my ducks in a row and my shit sorted out :) I just didn't expect it and it was beautiful!

This year I received four invitations from beautiful new friends in my new town to share Thanksgiving dinner with their families because they wanted to make sure I wasn't alone.  They know that I live two hours from my kids and family.  Another friend brought me a little artificial Christmas tree with lights because he knows that I'll spend Christmas with my kids and family in Virginia this year and he figured that I'd probably not put up a tree this year.  Beautiful!

Those invitations and gifts, were precious gifts to me.  Gifts that warmed my heart and yes, made me cry. I cry a lot these days which I attribute to menopause :)  Happy tears, mind you.  My friends wanted to make sure that I was taken care of and that's a beautiful thing. I was so thankful and grateful.

I learned a valuable lesson this week.  Life is a give and take and it's as important to allow others to help us as it is to help others.  It's good Karma for everyone involved :)

Happy Thanksgiving to you.

Peace and love,

Ellie