In 2006, a few days before Christmas, doctors announced my wife had six months to live. She had, they said, a rare form of cancer that had spread to her lungs. There was really nothing that could be done. We had a one-year-old, and I had been told my job was coming to an end the same day of the diagnosis. Thankfully, it was a misdiagnosis. Not only did I keep my job, but I kept my wife.
Ten years later, doctors informed my wife that they suspected she had a genetic form of lung cancer. Had my wife not been misdiagnosed in 2006, they would not have known about her lung cancer in 2016. My wife has stage four lung cancer. It is genetic. There is no cure. Nine years ago, she was given two years to live. She is still here.
Thankfulness can be a very abstract concept. We are grateful for things. We are thankful for things. We thank people. Often our gratitude comes from random events, seeming accidents, and happy coincidences. We don't often think about a man upstairs guiding our lives, let alone history. Things happen. We are thankful for dodging bullets, unanswered prayers, answered prayers, and the kindnesses of random strangers, family, and friends.
As we become more successful in life, it is often harder to be thankful for small things. Small things loom large when we are small, starting our career before life explodes into family, debt, career, success, and income. Then, many of the acts of kindness, gratitude, and thankfulness shrink. A 20-dollar bill is immeasurably larger and a great act of kindness to a struggling 20-something than to a well-off 40-something. But it is still an act of kindness. The thankfulness just changes based on where one is in life.
Two months ago, my wife fell down the stairs on the way out to church. She broke her foot. She has been healing from the break only to get hospitalized with an illness. The week after she got out of the hospital, my father got put into the hospital. I am thankful for my sisters who live closer to my parents than me who could tend to them while I tend to my wife. I am thankful for the doctors and the offers of help. I am way more thankful as I get older for the prayers of others than when I was young.
"I'll pray" is as much a Southernism as "bless your heart" and asking how someone is when you really are not interested in the answer. It is what you say, but it's not necessarily what you mean. I say it when I mean it, and I am more appreciative as I get older when people really do it. This last month has been a whirlwind for family health, work, professional growth, and setbacks. The friend's casserole or the neighbor covering dinner is far less meaningful now than their heartfelt prayers. Thankfully for all of them, the sacrifice of time to make room in prayers for other people than self is what I am more thankful for as I age.
We live in extraordinary and bizarre times. We have, right now, as you read this, a robot roaming Mars and a massive telescope in space beaming back incredible images of the edge of space. Online and on television, we have clowns performing for our attention, votes, support, opposition, or clicks. Sorting through it all can generate anxiety and a desire to unplug from it all. Why tune in when it is more pleasant to tune out and not think about things? But thinking and engaging is a civic and necessary virtue.
When we do, we should at least consider the small things for which we are thankful, from the small acts of kindness to the random events that just happen. I am thankful for the surprises in life that make me appreciate life still with my wife. In these overwhelming and extraordinary times, do not fail to be thankful. There is still so much to be thankful for.
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