I'm Thankful

[Goldtop]

It's Friday morning as I write this, the day after Thanksgiving in the USA.

I'm thankful for a number of things. I won't get into them now, but I would like to say a special thanks to the people who invited me into their home yesterday. I was a total stranger to most of them, but by the end of the day we had started getting to know each other. The day turned out to be totally different than what I had expected (in a good way), and I'm grateful for that.

I hope everyone had a safe, wonderful day yesterday.

All the best to everyone, Lloyd

 

[alantig]

+1 on what has been said before, but will add...

On my side of the family, we've been very lucky - my father is one of six children, my mother one of three. Of that lot, my mother's half-brother has died, and two of the spouses from my dad's family, but none of the six. At my daughter's graduation 2.5 years ago, we got a picture of the six (and I was in hot water because the camera battery had died) because we figured it would be the last time we'd have them all together, which has held true largely because my aunt has said she doesn't want to make the long trip again.

On my wife's side, both of my in-laws lost their remaining siblings this year - my FIL was one of five, MIL one of three. She was something like 7-10 years younger than her sisters, so I told my wife she's enjoying the benefit of being the baby of the family. My FIL had a bit of survivor's guilt because he's not the youngest - I believe he had two younger siblings, but I know that the youngest died a few years ago.

We were able to have both of our entire families (our parents and our siblings) together at both meals. There's always a sense of "we may not have this next year" to these gatherings, but we'll take them while we can.