Being Grateful Means Having Hope
`It’s always something.” - Roseanne Roseannadanna (Gilda Radner)
Okay, everybody, listen up, it’s time to be grateful again. And act like you mean it.
You cooks, be glad you can elbow your way up and down grocery aisles grabbing that last box of stuffing and muscling aside anybody between you and the turkey.
You kids, be thankful you have to turn off those video games long enough to whine, “When do we eat? When do we eat?”
You strays - you know who you are. Yes, you, the ones who always show up with a loaf of stale bread, a bag of potato chips or a cheap bottle of wine and think you’ve “helped with dinner” - be glad you got asked back.
America’s Gratitude Day is upon us, the official opening of the season of good cheer. It’s time to take stock, count blessings, feel better off than the next guy. Sometimes that’s difficult. As my daddy used to say, when you’re up to your you-know-what in alligators, it’s hard to remember why you came into the swamp.
But Thanksgiving bestows on us a respite, offers us an excuse to get a grip on our cravings, sort out the difference between wanting and needing. It’s a time to reflect on how lucky we are: “It was only the fender that got damaged, not Grandpa.”
Our lives are a mixed bag, good and bad, all muddled up together. For every hour we spend in joyous celebration and carefree abandon, we hunker down for 10 more, ducking, waiting for the next grenade to be lobbed into our foxhole. Our foreheads get creased from staring too hard into the future, trying to see what will befall us next.
My friend, the Queen of Worry, worries even when there’s nothing to worry about:
“That’s when something really bad is going to happen,” she frets.
Thanksgiving relieves us of all of that angst, gives us a dispensation to rejoice. Etiquette requires us, on cue, to recite our blessings - hard duty if a loved one has a serious illness, your spouse has lost his job, the kids are getting divorced, your mother-in-law is losing her mind, and all you really want for Christmas is a lock on the bathroom door.
But as the stories make their way around the table, we’re reminded we all have stones to roll. Granted, some are boulders - one friend’s son is in jail on a felony charge, another friend cares for a quadriplegic mother and paraplegic partner - but each of us must find some gratitude in our hearts.
“Sometimes you have to live in the negative to see where you really are,” says another friend. Between this Thanksgiving and last, she’s lost her house and her business has slumped. She figures she’s in a learning curve.
“You can’t fix a car by looking at it; you have to get dirty and take it apart, start getting rid of the bad stuff. That’s what I’m doing, thankful that I’m still here, older and wiser.”
If everything were perfect, we’d be bored to death. It’s the struggle that gets our juices going, keeps us sharp, helps us grow. Being grateful means having hope; without hope, what have we got? Not much. We remind ourselves that, no matter how bad it gets, it could always be worse.
“And probably will be,” predicts the Queen of Worry.
So be it. For this one sanctioned day a year, let’s bow our heads, say grace and mean it. Cemeteries are full of folks who don’t have a care in the world; as for the rest of us, it’s always something.
“Pass the turkey - what, no drumstick? Jeez!”