Giving Thanks
It’s Thanksgiving Day, 2012. My first Thanksgiving was in November, 1979 -- a few weeks after my husband joined me to immigrate to the US. I had arrived in April, 1979 – and it took seven months for his papers to be processed and approved. Thanksgiving was, at that time, quite a foreign holiday for both of us. The traditional Thanksgiving meal was even more foreign to us. We gathered at my sister’s home in Teaneck, NJ and had our first taste of this, a wonderful American tradition: sharing a meal together in a prayer of thanks. Over the years, I have learned to deeply appreciate this wonderful American tradition. There is something very restful and calming about this holiday. It’s as if we are allowed a mindful break from the rush of life in the last 11 months, before we get immersed in the Christmas holiday rush, and the year starts all over again.
After our kids were born, I started hosting our extended family’s Thanksgiving celebration. My oldest sister would insist (thankfully) to take care of the turkey, the stuffing, the cranberry sauce and the sweet potatoes. Like a true immigrant family, we complimented our Thanksgiving dinner with our own special Filipino dishes – like: lumpiang sariwa (fresh vegetable crepe), rellenong manok (stuffed chicken), and a myriad of desserts: leche flan (custard), fruit salad (canned fruit cocktail with condensed milk and nestle’s cream). Over the years, we would add friends who for some reason or another did not have any plans. We had to add folding tables to fit everyone in …if memory serves me right, there may have been a Thanksgiving dinner or two that there were at least 20 of us.
It was delightful chaos. One of my favorite pictures, which I still have framed near my bedside, is the last Thanksgiving we were complete as an extended family. It was Thanksgiving, 1996. We had just moved to Holmdel, my mother was visiting and all the kids and in-laws were present. The food was just a backdrop to the reassuring feeling of the constancy of family togetherness and love.
Over time, perfect attendance became more and more challenging. After we moved to Charlottesville, I started a tradition of inviting our Filipino students at Darden to join us for the Thanksgiving meal. After all, I thought what better way to welcome them into the American way of life.
Today, it’s a bit different. My husband and I are celebrating Thanksgiving in Hilton Head alone with our dog. We – our kids and the extended family with whom we used to share this wonderful tradition are all in various parts of the US and the world. I woke up feeling melancholy and homesick for not being “together”.
Still, sometime today, I will take my walk on the beach, gaze into the ocean and the beautiful blue sky and say a prayer of thanks. A prayer of thanks for this, our beautiful world, for feeling the family togetherness and love despite the distance , for the blessings of good friends, good health, comfort, safety, and for the grace of awareness and gratitude for these many blessings. And I will add a prayer for those, who for one reason or another, do not feel blessed or are going through difficult times, that they do not feel alone today, that they, too, are blessed with the grace of awareness and gratitude for their own blessings.
One of my favorite old-time songs is Louis Armstrong’s “It’s a Wonderful World”. I’m thinking as I take my walk on the beach today, I will quietly sing this in my heart, as my prayer of thanks.
"I see trees of green........ red roses too I see em bloom..... for me and for you And I think to myself.... what a wonderful world.
I see skies of blue..... clouds of white Bright blessed days....dark sacred nights And I think to myself .....what a wonderful world.
The colors of a rainbow.....so pretty ..in the sky Are also on the faces.....of people ..going by I see friends shaking hands.....sayin.. how do you do They're really sayin......i love you.
I hear babies cry...... I watch them grow They'll learn much more.....than I'll never know And I think to myself .....what a wonderful world"
