This year there are so many things to be thankful for, but my daughters hearing and my publication contract stand out as the front runners.
I am a very humble, quiet person. I take everything as it is handed out and never once deny an opportunity, no matter how small it may be.
Not very many people know, ten years ago this month my mom and I lost everything, we were homeless and destitute. Of course we were always told everything will get better, blah, blah, but in that situation, nothing seems rosy, nothing seem “happy.” You are always thinking minute by minute, where will we sleep, where will we go, how will we eat. Somehow by the grace of God, we were always safe and we always had a hot meal, even if it was once a day. For three years, thanksgiving, and Christmas was non-existent for us and sure it would have been nice to have something…anything, we were always grateful for a warm bed and food in our stomachs.
So here we are now ten years later, I have a beautiful seven year old daughter who is the light of my life. I get to spoil my child whenever I can and at least I have a home I can call my own. I try not to look back, because it was so painful and so hard, but I believe today I am a better person for it. I think I hold my head a little higher smile just a bit more and take nothing for granted.
This holiday season will be the first season Cheyenne will experience everything like it was the first time all over again. I can’t tell you how excited I am for her. Not only that but if you would have told me ten years ago you will be a published author, I would have laughed in your face and told you not to be so cruel. HA! How wrong I would have been huh?
This really is the start of a new life for me and my loved ones and I can tell you this, I will always be grateful for everything that has come to past these last ten years. I believe I wouldn’t be the person I am without going through what my mom and I went through.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Thanksgiving is the North American tradition of appreciating the richness in our lives and being grateful. So often it is embarrassingly easy to overlook or take for granted those small, and large, blessings that make our days worth living, making it easier to get out of bed.
For me, even as my family changes ~ three of my children are on their own, with our without others and the youngest is set to head out on her own next summer... she’ll be 18. A time for grieving? Yes... a bit. But most of all I’m grateful that my husband and I have been able to watch our children grow to be independent, responsible, caring and very interesting people. All different, but that’s part of the gift. I think that we were able to let each of them be their own person, who they were, not who we wanted them to be. For that I’m extremely grateful.
I’m enormously grateful for my husband; the man to whom I’ve been married almost 26 years. Even when things were at their roughest in our relationship, we persevered ~ maybe just one of us at the time ~ but I am so very thankful that we have. We’ve reached a new level in our friendship, our love; we’re learning to turn back to each other and enjoy who we are together and separately. I’m amazingly grateful that he has been able to overlook, or at least come to terms with, my idiosyncrasies. And I’m so very happy to have this, sometimes annoying, but always loving man in my life.
I’m grateful to have grown up in a family filled with love; challenges yes, but always love. Parents who, irregardless of the arguments and heated discussions we had as I got older, never made me feel less than cherished. I’m grateful for my five younger siblings. Growing up the eldest often left me feeling put out and taken advantage of ~ the way that children do. But I also had someone around with whom to play, to talk to or just to have around. And now, that we’re older and, for most of us, watching our own children move into their own lives there’s a bond that will never diminish, never tarnish. We’re different people, very different, but I’m so grateful for the experiences of growing up with them that have given us common memories.
And lastly I’m grateful for the gift of freedom; for the freedom to be able to read or take an interest in whatever appeals to me without fear of retribution. For the freedom that so many have given their lives for, freedom that we take for granted or even, at times, denigrate because it’s been come so easy to us. And I’m very grateful for this opportunity to remind myself once again, just how lucky I am; to be me, to be here and to have a life I love.