Excited Thankfulness

I am so excited! For the first time in about 7 years I will spend Thanksgiving with my family. Not only that but I will spend it with my daughter and her family too! It has been about 15 years since I spent Thanksgiving with her.

I have to admit that it has been a grief to my heart to not be part of extended family celebrations. It is not how I thought my life would be. I always pictured my children and grandchildren streaming home for the holidays with love and laughter filling the air. Instead I find myself alone, ill and often lonely through the holidays. I have worked hard to try to not sit around and mope. For Thanksgiving I usually spend it at the Fire Station with the on duty crew. Christmas I spend volunteering at the free Community Christmas Dinner. Those are rich and wonderful times, but yet so different from what I thought my life would be at this point.

I have to admit that even when I am with my family I often feel out of place. My children are not usually there and I am often reminded that I am in so many ways an outsider. I do not doubt my family's love for me, I think in many ways they do not understand me or the life I live. I have little revelence to their lives.

But this Thanksgiving is different. I will be able to spend time with my daughter, son in law and two marvelous grandchildren. I will get to know them in new ways and hopefully let them know how much I love them and how important they are to me.

Just a week away ... I am feeling thankful ...

Just Connie