Hours before the big turkey day I am bracing myself for my own personal worst Thanksgiving.
This year you see, I’m spending Thanksgiving in a nursing home environment, with institutional food to commemorate the big day. This displaces the previous Worst Thanksgiving Ever, which took place 26 years ago. At that time I was hundreds of miles away from home and I ushered in the holiday season by myself with the Shoney’s special in Henderson Kentucky. The centerpiece of that meal was some unidentifiable white meat which may have rubbed up against an actual turkey sometime during a previous incarnation.
Nonetheless, there is a lot to be thankful for on this particular holiday.
I am thankful that my surgeon’s amputation of my lower left leg went successfully and as well as could be expected under the circumstances. (The notion of my surgeons Thanksgiving has intrigued me since I last spoke with him on Tuesday. I could not help but envision a Norman Rockwell family get-together transformed into an operating theater. “Forceps, retractor, scalpel,” he’d yell as he sliced into the huge bird. And then a rundown of ingredients, “Stuffing, cranberry sauce, yams...”
I assume that the only thing that would be MASHed in such an environment would be the potatoes.)
I learned today that sutures may be removed from my surgery within two weeks. This means that a "stump sump" (try and say that 10 times fast) can be used to begin shaping my leg for use with a prosthetic.
I am thankful for the support of family members and friends that work toward rehabilitation. Just today I received a prayer rug or a prayer blanket made by a woman’s church group in nearby Jeffersontown Kentucky. The lovely quilt-like object will keep me physically and spiritually warm in the weeks and months to come.
Looking outside to the greater world I see there is much to be thankful for there as well.
I am thankful for the American service men and women who remain committed to the nobler purposes we were given for our invasion of Iraq.
I am thankful for all those family members still here whose prayers provide them with a source of strength during this difficult time.
I am thankful for the voters who sent an unquestionable message about the conduct of the war and whose actions may help to limit future sacrifices.
And I am thankful that we have a President who can extend clemency to poultry when he has failed to extend it to human beings under a death sentence.
For too many people this Thanksgiving will be just another Thursday, a time to rest up and gird their loins prior to doing battle with fellow shoppers on Black Friday. My prayer is simple. That these people be awaken to a deeper appreciation of all they have to be thankful for during these holidays.