Over the last week, there have been three car accidents around the farm. We’ve come home to flashing lights and closed roads. Less than a week ago, we watched from the dining room window as a helicopter landed on the road to airlift someone to the hospital.
Today, Thanksgiving, I am thankful to be here. To be healthy. To be with my family.
This is what matters.
Hold your loved ones close. Take time to be with them. Take care as you go through the world. Care for yourself and for others. Care for your physical well-being as well as your mental and emotional wellness.
Be kind. Careful. Polite. Patient. Respectful. In the store, at work, around the dinner table, on the road and online.
As we celebrate Thanksgiving, I am thankful for many things. But the thing I am most thankful for is time.
Time to be here. To be with Ellie. To experience so many things.
Time is precious. When this day is done, it is gone. Forever. Not every day is about making memories. Sometimes it’s just about getting through. But every day I try to be thankful that I am here and able to do the things I do.
I am thankful that I have been able to choose, for the most part, how I spend my time. I have opted out of a more traditional job to find work that serves me. This choice has given me time for Ellie, which is occasionally challenging, but mostly amazing. It has meant time for the farm, which is occasionally challenging, but mostly amazing.
It has meant fitting work into my schedule when I can (mostly at night). It has meant less money, but we are fortunate that it has been enough money.
That concept of enough is important to me. Of course I would like more money. I want to give Ellie lots of opportunities and I have a long list of renovations and plans. But we have enough money to live our lives with a pretty high level of freedom. Freedom to spend our time as we want.
There is never enough money. There is never enough time.
But I try to see money as enough, and time as more valuable than anything. An extra cuddle on the couch in the morning rather than running to make breakfast and get out the door, playtime during the day and work at night, an afternoon at a playground instead of rushing to the next thing we have to do. These simple things have become so precious to me, and I try not to take them for granted.
So today, I am saying thank you. Thank you for this day. I am thankful I am here.
We celebrated Thanksgiving this weekend. When I think of what I’m thankful for, my answer is everything.
I can’t write a list like I did in the past because the list wouldn’t stop. I can’t single out one thing because they’re all magical.
We live each day with so much love and joy. And I try to make it enough.
I’ve been thinking of this Thanksgiving post all week. Trying to figure out what to write. When I found this quote it summed up what I felt. It was enough.
But tonight. Late at night. As I tap away on my phone (not my preferred way to write), my thoughts are different.
I am still filled with love and joy. Always.
But when I think about what comes after Thanksgiving three years ago this becomes a very hard time of year. I slide back easily and remember what each day was and what we were marching toward.
One giant, terrible hole. That is still with us. All the time. I am not grateful for the hole.
What I have of Matt is not enough.
So I live with the hole. I live with the love. I live with the joy. I am thankful. And I work to make it enough.
I couldn’t remember Matt’s last Thanksgiving. It bugged me so much that I had this big hole of lost time with Matt. That I couldn’t remember him enjoying his favourite holiday. From what I’ve been able to piece together from our families, he was feeling pretty rough and may not have enjoyed it very much.
But what happened after Thanksgiving was too clear.
The day after Thanksgiving, we were at the hospital for an appointment with our oncologist. I hung back after the appointment and he told me that Matt would live for a few more weeks. I said, “Christmas?” He said, “No.”
I remember how it felt to come home to Ellie and hold her as I laid on the floor and sobbed. I remember not telling Matt what the oncologist had said.
From Thanksgiving to November 9 last year, I was living a flashback. I remember how rough Matt felt and I remember how hard we were holding on.
I’m worried that the flashbacks will happen again this year. I’m worried that Thanksgiving will lead to another spiral.
But I’m also choosing to remember before.
Thanksgiving is Matt’s favourite holiday.
There are lots of Thanksgivings before last year and the last one.
He loves the turkey–the bigger the better. He’s particular about his potatoes–and must mash them personally. He and his brothers have their own language when they are together (obscure movie quotes that are meaningless to everyone else).
Ellie and I have been working on finding the joy and the love and the gratitude–as we always do.
We’ve been writing what we’re thankful for on paper leaves and sticking them on our thankful tree. Ellie made a picture at preschool of her and Daddy “when they were turkeys.” I found a fortune laying on the ground behind our car that says, “Someone is looking out for you.”
It is so, so hard that Matt is not here in the way I wish he was. But I am thankful for every way he is with us.
Happy Thanksgiving. Whatever your situation, I hope that you can find happiness today.
Today is Thanksgiving here in Canada. I’m thankful for many things. My husband, our daughter, our dog and our cat. Our families, this farm, good food.
Most of all this year I’m thankful for time. We often feel that there’s not enough time. Or we wish we were doing something else with our time.
At the start of this year, I proclaimed my word of the year was “slow.”
I wrote:
“We have to do our absolute best to live a life that we are satisfied with. I want to feel good about what I do, who I am with and how I spend my time. And the word “spend” is important. Time is valuable. Time is precious.”
Over the past little while, I feel like I’ve found a balance of how I spend my time. I have time to work and create and relax. Time with my family and with myself. I treasure each of these moments and don’t take them for granted.
Every day is very full, and there is pressure. There are trade-offs and the balance doesn’t always look the same. But usually by the end of the day I feel at peace with what I’ve done and how I’ve spent my time.
I’m very thankful for that.
A few weeks ago I saw a sign on the side of the road that said, “You have what you need for this moment.”
This message was an affirmation that I have the strength, the skills, the energy, the ability, the support to face whatever comes. It’s also a reminder to live in the moment and not worry about what’s ahead.
Today is going to be full of moments with my amazing family at our lovely farm. I’m thankful for this time.
Home on 129 Acres 