Thankful, seems like a small word.

I'm thankful not just on Thanksgiving but all year round.  I know how lucky I am to have what I do (the people, my job, each healthy day, a home, and all the things we don't think about until they are gone) and I never let a day begin or end without expressing my gratitude for where I fit in to it all.


It has become tradition in social media to spend a month stating things we are grateful for, but that seems like such a waste to me, and almost pejorative.  The task itself forces us to call out and minimize the importance of the greater picture. I am not simply grateful for my children, but for the gift of motherhood; for who they are; for their presence; their compassion; the spirits they house within their core; for all they are and ever will be. There is always a bigger picture. How they came to be; what they will become; all the lives they will touch; the picture is vast. To hone in on simply calling them my children does not remotely begin to cover the gratitude and overwhelming sense of awestruck that floods over me when I think of them.


I feel the same about many people in my life.  The threads are so interwoven and masterfully crafted to design the life I live, that to pluck at one and pull at it would create a snag difficult for the finest seamstress to darn back together. I am thankful for the ever evolving fine artwork that is my life. It is beautiful and heart wrenching, soothing and thought provoking, stirring and calming, it is complex and easy.


Not a moment passes that I don't realize the power of life and death, and not a moment passes that I am not in absolute terror and ultimate peace in parallel.


Another Thanksgiving comes and goes and the holidays follow close behind and I am blessed ever and always to be a part of them.