Christmas, Chanakuh, New Years Eve, Halloween.  “Now THOSE are some great holidays,” you might be thinking.  You might even be recollecting or dusting off your favorite memories during these celebrations.  After all, there are presents, intoxication, socializing, mistletoe kisses and costumed-misses.  What is your favorite holiday? And honestly, who wouldn’t choose one of the above?  Well…that would be me.

Now, if you are reading this and you are American, you can not doubt that one of our favorite pastimes is consuming.  We love getting what we want when we want it, especially if it feels good to have it.  More importantly, we always love a chance to consume good food (add in some good company and you’ve got yourself a bonus).  Thanksgiving is a holiday where dishes and spoonfuls are plenty and they are spread out right before our wide eyes.  Not only that, but we all know that on this very day we have an excuse to eat as much turkey or as many sweet potatoes as we possibly can since, after all, it is thanksgiving.  I will call this reason, the face value reason.

If you dig deeper, I think you’ll see that Thanksgiving is just flat out honest.  A personification of the holiday would basically go something like this, “Alright lets round everyone up, get together, and just be together with some food, some football, and whatever else comes up…”  There is no rushing around mad for last minute presents for Uncle X or Aunt Y.  You don’t have to chop down anything and you most certainly don’t have to wear a certain color.  Imagine that, you get the day off from work for a holiday of family, friends, and eating!  It is a “just be” holiday for “just being” thankful and appreciative for the people and things in your life.  If you take a chance to reflect on that idea, you will realize that it is one of the most truest, simplest, purest holidays around.  It is a holiday free of religion, free of rules or standards, free of cliche “merrys” or “wishes.”

On a more personal note…..

I realized my own reverence for this holiday in 2004.  It was November of my freshman year in college and I was coming home for Thanksgiving break.  I was so excited to just be coming home for a good amount of time (for the first time in months); especially after the transition of moving away from home.  My aunt and grandpa who live with me at home picked me up from school; nothing out of the ordinary.  I arrived home and scooped my dog into my arms and started briskly walking around the house; excited to see my family.  The only thing was, no one was around.  Then I look over to my aunt standing by the front door and she told me she had to tell me something.  She told me that she needed me to sit down.  “Barbara, your mother is in the hospital, okay.”  Wait, what?

My aunt said everything was going to be alright, but I didn’t want to hear anything else.  I called what I believe was my mom’s cell phone and I was relieved to hear her voice.  As tears ran down my face, I was told she’d be in the hospital for at least the next week.  Later that day and within the next few days I found out that my mom was diagnosed with a very treatable form of Leukemia; Hairy Cell Leukemia.  I was angry to find out that she had been keeping all of this from me because I was away at school; even when she was waiting to hear what kind of Leukemia she had (whether it was severe or not).  That year my mom’s birthday fell on Thanksgiving and I’ll never forget the vision of her, exhausted from the chemo, sleeping in her hospital bed as me, my younger sister and brother, and dad sat by her bed on Thanksgiving that year.

However, to this day, I see that we were blessed.  After her two weeks straight of chemo, she was healthy and still is healthy today although she still goes for her check ups.  Ever since that Thanksgiving, I have been thankful even more than before.  Not only do I think of how blessed we were to have such a treatable form of cancer, but I, along with my mom, think of all those who have to be in the hospital especially during the holidays.  We got a taste of what it was like to be upset and powerless as we stood by my ever optimistic and loving mom who was stuck in a bleak room with an IV.  It made me have a new found respect for the strength of those in hospitals and a new found admiration for families and friends who have gone through cancer with a loved one.  I remember being in the hall of the hospital outside my mom’s room.  I listened to an older man singing a hymn from his hospital bed in another room.  I just remember gazing out the window wishing I can somehow break everyone in that place free.

It was a reality check and every year that Thanksgiving comes around I am appreciative for learning a lesson, for having my mom close by, and for the strength that family and friends provide.

What makes you thankful?  Is it a person?  Is it an experience?  I think the reason why I like Thanksgiving most is because it is a holiday that you can define for yourself.  It is free of judgment or reason.  Also, last I checked, the expression, words, actions of gratitude are limitless; “thanks” is a universal language that we all can participate in.

When Thanksgiving comes around this year, what will you be appreciative of?  Who will you thank?