Confession: My heavenly intentions for Thanksgiving are often clobbered by my oh-so-real life.
I would love to be preparing our hearts all month for gratitude, but I find myself picking up someone else’s rank gym socks. I would love to be stuffing a jar with slips of paper declaring our thankfulness, but can tend to stave off a little more teenage complaining instead…?
Me with my dad–who’s had my back for a long time.
When I was a junior in high school, a good friend of mine asked me to prom. I was elated. Yet as per our family’s policy, my dad asked to meet him for coffee and bagels. It was his “interview” of sorts before all my dates.
“How will I know which one he is?” Dad asked me.
Like so much of 2020, there are parts of Thanksgiving this year that are a bit sad. We’ve canceled our family trip for reasons you can probably guess (thank you, COVID).
But this year continues to fling doors wide open in raising resilient kids.
Around his birthday last year, I mentioned to my husband the number of people who’d wished him a warm HBD on Facebook. My daughter, listening, asked if he’d received a lot of cards. “I used to get a lot. But people don’t do that much anymore,” he shrugged.
We’ve all got more than enough to do–and plenty of “shoulds”, right? I’m truly not wanting to add more. But I’ve found writing notes actually makes me…happier.
Author’s note: If you missed these previous posts, you might grab them first for other overarching ideas on choosing vulnerability even when it’s hard–and being a safe place for others when they don’t have their act together.
My husband and I were headed out on a date night (can you hear the angel choirs singing? I needed it. As in, bad). It was admittedly last minute, to the point that my curly-turned-cotton-candy hair had been lassoed by a headband and fun-bun. But my kids would have food and it looked positive no one would burn anything down, so the big stuff was covered. Thus I sat in the passenger seat with my makeup bag, aka magic wand. I was just about through patting on concealer when my husband looked over at me.
Missed the previous posts and the ideas behind this series? Catch ’em here.
He was barely in the front door, cheeks flushed from the bike ride home. He smelled like the cold and that faintest puff of little-boy sweat. “Mom! Guess what! We’re getting a new kid and his name is Toby and the teacher wants me to show him around and tell him all about the school!” He drew a breath, those Chiclet-sized adult teeth still, charmingly, just a bit too big for his eight-year-old mouth.
Like you, my heart is twisting as all eyes turn toward Hurricane Irma, which has already devastated the lives of so many in the Caribbean–and soon followed by Jose and Katia. With this morning’s earthquake in Mexico, the pummeling by Hurricane Harvey, and wildfires torching the West–pray with me for those torn from their homes and relying on the kindness of others for their next meal.
Victims of these natural disasters: We remember you, and we’re on our knees.
Right now, scooter wheels are rattling past my bedroom window. Ugandan kids are out of school—and once 3 PM hits, they know they’re free to knock at our metal gate. They pour in from the neighborhood, sometimes even slinging their legs over the shoulder-height brick walls to leap down in our yard. Though I admit to some sense of relief when holidays are over—there’s a part of me that loves our yard swarming with kids.
Scientist Jared Diamond’s quote remains perennially rooted in my mind:
I have heard many anecdotal stories, among my own friends, of children who were raised by difficult parents but who nevertheless became socially and cognitively competent adults, and who told me that what had saved their sanity was regular contact with a supportive adult other than their parents, even if that adult was just a piano teacher whom they saw once a week for a piano lesson. (The World Until Yesterday, p.190)
I view the items in my home differently now. Everything is slid into a category in my mind: Pack it. Sell it. Give it. Just as we did five and a half years ago in Little Rock, we’re packing up our lives here in Africa. But of course the person who packed up then isn’t the same person who’s packing now.
And thankfully, those intangibles are things I can keep.
They don’t take up precious luggage space; I won’t need to sell them for pennies on the dollar with which I bought them. They’re Africa’s gifts to me.
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