The day before Thanksgiving.

That doesn’t sound right to me.  I wonder if it bothers anyone else.

The Lovely Lady tells me I don’t need to overthink things.  She knows I will anyway.  I come by it honestly.  It’s in the genes, you might say.

My father is the one I blame for this trait.  Logic was his domain.  Every year on what most of us would call his birthday, he’d inform us he was celebrating the anniversary of his birthday.  Clearly, you can’t literally revisit your birthday—it being in the dim, distant past.

Then, he would go even further and explain that, in reality, one was beginning the next year in the sequence of years.  If you turned thirty, that was the day you entered your thirty-first year—having completed the thirtieth already.  Then, if he was really feeling curmudgeonly, he’d remind you that technically you needed to add nine months to the age anyway since the gestation period was arguably a season of your life.

I’d like to tell you I’m not quite as pedantic as that, but in my overthinking brain, it bothers me a bit to think that only one day in the year should be recognized as Thanksgiving.

And, now that I let my eyes drift to the words I’ve written above, I realize I’ve departed so far from my original intention for this little essay that I may have already lost the plot.  It’s a common problem for me.

Now, where was I?

Oh yes.  The day before Thanksgiving.

Somehow, I think it’s no mistake that a close family member is scheduled to have a consultation with her surgeon on this day to discuss the timetable for removal of a mass in her abdomen.

I was to go to the appointment with her until my doctor added an appointment at another hospital for an MRI for me.  Yes.  On the day before Thanksgiving.  He says we need confirmation that I actually have a brain in my head.  There’s never been any convincing proof of the fact, to my knowledge.

And, the other family member who stepped in to take the family member to her doctor’s visit is already dealing with bad news for others in his own circle.

But, give it one more day and then we’re going to be thankful.  We’ll gather the rest of the family around the loaded table and get in the spirit of things—being thankful. 

Just not today. 

Somehow, that doesn’t seem right.

Is the day before the official holiday going to be hard?  It does seem likely.  Biopsy reports and anticipation of surgery and, possibly a chemo regimen are hard.  Hard.

Lying with one’s head in a cage listening to the clicks, the whirs, and the bangs of the machine surrounding you can’t be comfortable.  It might be considered hard, too.

I talked with at least three friends today who told me of family members dealing with the “hard”.  Many I know (and you do, too) are anticipating a holiday with empty chairs at the table—chairs that had someone they love sitting in them a year ago—three years ago—a decade ago.  It doesn’t matter. 

Grief is hard.

None of what I write here is going to make the hard any easier.  None of these words are intended to diminish, and certainly, not to make light of the pain.

I know this about being thankful:  It allows us to see a way through the hard to the future.  But, when all we can see is the hard and the pain, we can’t see past it to anything but the now.

The hard now.  Today.

But, today is not all there is.  It’s not.

His mercies are new every morning.  Every one of them.

“Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.” (1 Thessalonians 5:18, NLT)

I’ve never been quite sure I like these words penned by the apostle for whom I am named.  But, they give me hope.  They tell me I belong.

To Him.  The One who has planned good things for me.  And for you.  Things to help us, not to hurt us.

I will live in that hope—will walk in that hope.

It’s not the day before Thanksgiving.

It is a day of thanksgiving.  Another one. 

Like yesterday was.  And, like tomorrow will be.

I’m giving thanks. 

Today.

I hope you will, too.

 

“And now let the weak say ‘I am strong’;
Let the poor say ‘I am rich’,
Because of what the Lord has done for us.
Give thanks.”
(from Give Thanks, by Henry Smith)

“I will thank the Lord with all my heart!
I will tell about all your amazing deeds.
I will be happy and rejoice in you.
I will sing praises to you, O Most High.”
(Psalm 9: 1-2, NET)

 

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2024. All Rights Reserved.