Thanksgiving

Holding It All Together - by Amy McCollom - Thanksgiving

I sat down tonight and planned to write about all the things I was thankful for. I was hoping to inspire someone to re-evaluate their life and notice the small things that they should be thankful for, and not just overlook. Little things like their health and their home and their jobs. Things that matter but we've gotten accustomed to taking them for granted.

But as I sat here I began to think about my life, and it started to weigh heavy on my mind. Last week my mother had open heart surgery. She's doing good, however there are some complications. Now she has become diabetic and has to take shots of insulin and test her blood everyday. She's weak and shaky and can't do the things she would like to do, such as make her bed, or walk the aisles of the grocery store. It's added a bit more worry to my already busy life. I check on her daily and feel like I almost have another child to look after. "How's your sugar today?" "Have you been drinking sweet tea again?" "You know you shouldn't be eating more than one cookie."

Then I thought about my kids. They're not perfect, but I love them anyway. When we went to visit my mom in the hospital, five-year-old Rosa looked out the eighth story window and screamed, " Look, you can see Disney World from here!" She also thinks she can breathe under water, and will grow wings some day. Rosa had plastic surgery to remove a large hemangioma from the back of her head last year, and has trouble with nerve pain until I can barely brush her hair. I usually try and use my fingers instead of the hard bristles. They say in time this should get better.

Rudy, Rosa's twin, was born with a hole in his heart. He got pneumonia at five weeks old and nearly died. He was in ICU for over a week. At his last heart sono, the hole had apparently closed up on it's own. Many prayers had gone up for that little boy.

Portia is eight now, and I've gotten used to her little differences. When the doctors casually told me, as if it was an ingrown toe nail, that she was autistic, I didn't know what I should feel. Fear gripped me because I had only heard the worse case scenarios about autistic children. And then when she was diagnosed with Tourettes Syndrome too, I was beside myself. Her tics can be annoying for someone who doesn't understand her. But her love for reading and her excitement about science makes me forget about all that for a while.

During a recent occupational therapy appointment for Portia, I was sitting in the waiting room feeling a bit sorry for myself. Why did my child have to come here every two weeks to learn to get her feet off the ground and build upper arm strength? Why was my daughter unable to ride a bike or tie her shoes? Why did she need to be taught how to hop on one foot and do jumping jacks? Then Mikey came in with his mother.

Mikey, not his real name of course, is a little boy about the same age as Portia. He is in a wheel chair and drools constantly, wearing a light blue baby's bib around his neck. He has a tube coming out of his throat and makes gurgling sounds that his mother said were words. His mother was smiling. She wasn't scowling or sitting quietly like me with a blank look on her face and an unopened magazine in her lap while she waited. She laughed and wiped Mikey's face. And I felt about an inch tall. Here moments earlier I had been feeling sorry for myself because my daughter wasn't perfect. And while I'm sure there were days that Mikey's mom didn't want to get out of bed to face another day of what she had to go through, on this particular day there was nothing but love and thankfulness on her face. God speaks in a still small voice.

So this Thanksgiving I plan to look at the positive side of everything. Our house is too small, but that makes it warm and cozy. Our kids aren't perfect, but that makes them unique. Our van is old, but dependable. My mom had surgery, but she made it through.

And if I run out of positive things, I have a book called 14,000 Things To Be Happy About by Barbara Ann Kipfer. It's a great book, and I highly recommend it when you need to get happy in a hurry.

So in conclusion, remember this. It's ok if you burned the turkey, or the pumpkin pie is runny. It's ok if you are going through a crisis, or things in your life aren't the way you have hoped. Keep moving. Keep hoping. Keep smiling. Keep praying. And keep holding it all together. It could always be worse, Love.