Thanksgiving Day

I just got up and got a cup of coffee. It is pouring down rain outside. I am alone at home. I presume my extended family are all celebrating somewhere today. Mike just called and I will go get him in a bit so he can do his laundry and go to lunch with us. We're going after three so Phyllis can join us.

I was just thinking of what I have to be thankful about. I glanced up at our family portrait on the wall and remembered other Thanksgivings when it was just the four of us and how nice it was to have Jerry in the living room drinking coffee and watching that stupid Thanksgiving Day parade playing down the hall, followed by ball games and the boys and I playing games or me cooking in the kitchen. Later we'd watch movies. I was thankful for that. I was happier than even I knew in those days. I'm briefly thankful and profoundly bereft that it is all gone. And I am devastated I can't ever recapture, relive, or recreate those times.

For a moment I wondered how Jerry would have handled this situation. Fear for him, even now, as if he were still here and could experience it, flicks at me. I think he would not have survived it. Then I think, no, he might have been just fine. He'd be with his Sarah today if he could and I'd be a distant memory. Maybe he'd be happy and enjoying life. I like to think so. He'd need someone to take care of him.

I am thankful I am alive. I am not thankful Jerry is not. I am thankful for 12,802 days with Jerry but it was not enough. I am sorry I did not make them better days.

For now, I'm sitting in my bedroom typing this blog and listing to the sound of the rain. I love the sound of rain and it sounds soothing and lovely on the roof. Later, I'll join Mike, Dave, Becca, Sarah, and Phyllis for dinner and oddly enough we will not laugh and talk over the meal and remember good times. We'll eat and go home. We do not care about this day anymore. We are a ship with a rudder, drifting about trying to find meaning in the day and failing that, we put ashore on one of those tiny Islands of Happiness that are scattered throughout the Sea of Misery.

I truly wish I can tell you I'm happy and all is right with the world and it is a wonderful place to be. But I can't. I can tell you that life is about loss. It is the things we lose that make the most impact. The greater the loss, the more powerful the blow. And we can't escape the losses.

We get over happiness easily. We do not get over loss so well. And when we lose a part of ourselves, we do not recover. If we lose a leg, we limp. If we lose our eyes, we stumble into walls.We do not recover. We simply learn to adapt. For that we can be thankful. We are not required to be happy about it.

My Sea of Misery image came to me after I went to bed the other night and I lay in the dark and saw myself running aground some distance from shore. I got out of my leaky boat and swam to the tiny stretch of white sand where I dragged myself ashore and lay back on the warm sand to recover from my stormy journey. I looked up at a leaden sky. Not one with white fluffy clouds and azure skies. Still, I thought, I'd found an island to rest on.

I got up and looked around. It was a pitiful island for an Island of Happiness. Trees were straggly and scrawny, not enough foliage for a decent shade. But then, there wasn't a decent amount of sunshine either. The fruit was ok. There was no shelter and no one to play in the surf, to talk to, to sit by a fire and enjoy the silence.

Still it was a small Island of Happiness. I hadn't drowned in my Sea of Misery. For now I was alive. I was glad of that but as I looked around I knew that I wouldn't be here long.

One couldn't stay long on any Island. We are forced back into the Sea of Misery at some point to sail to the next Island.

We can imagine them, there in the distance, filled with excitement and laughter and adventure. We can actually see the tops of verdant trees swaying in warm breezes and lovely green mountains we imagine scaling to look out over beautiful valleys. We do not see the miles of Sea between because we do not believe life is about loss. For us, life is about the pursuit of happiness, a never ending chase for an elusive place that we can only taste for a moment. And while we are there, we fail to value it for what it is. A gift, so brief and yet so powerful that we constantly pursue it again once it is gone. It always disappears once you reach the Island. That is what drives us back into that surging Sea.

While you sit around your table today or sit with your family doing whatever you usually do on this day, get this image in your mind. The place you stand is an island. It is a small island. You will only be permitted to stay here for a few hours or days or maybe a week. Take pictures. Say the things you have never said, may never have said, dreamed of saying. Give all the hugs, kisses, and pats you possibly can give. Laugh until your side hurts and tears stream down you face.

Because when you leave that place, you can't come back.