Thanksgiving Lost and Found

I was just recovering from a fun Halloween with the kids and an evening of way too many Reese's peanut butter cups when my Outlook reminded me of a tree lighting the next day.  After 8:00 p.m. the door bell ringing got lighter and lighter as the trick or treaters were getting ready for bed because it was a school night.   All that Hallows eve on TV there were references to the spooky holiday.  Then the inevitable happened:  a new slew of Christmas commercials started running around 9:00 p.m. before Halloween's body was even cold (okay, granted I had tombstones on my yard, and a fake dead body that was parked next to the one that said, "I'll be back).  This grand rush to Christmas seemed to be a bit premature and annoying.  The next night, I was watching an 18 foot Christmas tree get it's first lighting to great fan fare for an event at work.  It looked beautiful and put everyone into the Christmas spirit, but what about Thanksgiving? Didn't anyone care about that holiday anymore?  I mean it's two and a half weeks away!

You hardly see commercials for Thanksgiving anymore.  Maybe that's because the industry that profits the most from it are the supermarkets - not departments stores, not toy stores, not computer stores and not car dealers.  Thanksgiving is all about food and football.  Who really needs to think about preparing the feast aside from the holiday martyrs (moms, sisters and grandparents) that volunteer to have the dinner at their house?   Thanksgiving is not about anything material - it's about being with the people you love or at least have to stomach one or twice a year to keep the family peace.   Besides, the next day is Black Friday - the greatest shopping day of the year.  Thanksgiving has now become a speed bump between Halloween and Christmas.  

Unfortunately, I think the act of giving thanks has been lost along the internet highway.  As our society has gotten more tech savvy and let's face it - more snarky - it's not cool to think about all the gifts you have and to be grateful for them.  It's easier to hide behind a laptop and send instant messages rather than talk to someone directly to hear their voice and really gauge how they're doing. It's so much easier to make snide comments on YouTube  anonymously about Lindsay Lohan or Kim Kardashian's 72-day marriage rather than praising your spouse and children for sticking it out with you.  You can share a link to a pithy saying on Facebook rather than just taking the time to actually thank the people who need thanking.   You see and hear folks being rude to each other on TV on a regular basis and unfortunately our kids are beginning to model it themselves based on the diva fits they see on Real Housewives and other reality shows.   But few programs show people taking someone's hand, looking into their eyes and just telling them how much it means to have them in their lives and making it look cool. 

I began to believe that we had lost the art of being grateful.   It's not easy to  say a heartfelt thanks to those that help us rather then just assuming that they know how we feel.   So we numb ourselves into silence hoping that we'll get appreciated without taking the step of showing it first.    So I began to wonder if with all the bad economic news, the political backbiting and negative media stories, was the United States losing it's optimism?  Were we becoming the snarkiest country on earth - unable to appreciate even the smallest things?  I was wondering if I had lost that ability myself as I struggled to deal with a recent job loss and now know first hand the anxiety that many Americans feel in this questionable job market.   

I was driving into work on my last day and listening to the Bert Show on Q100.  They had recently completed Bert's Big Thank You and had asked their listeners to hand write letters to thank every soldier serving overseas for their service so that they would know that someone took the time to tell them how much they cared.  Amber and I had done some letters through our church.  The drive had been iffy - they needed over 400,000 letters and just a week out from the deadline only had 40,000 - but human nature being what it is, a slew of letters came in that last push and they had actually received over a half a million.  Now that they had the letters, they needed volunteers to help sort them out.   Realizing that after today, I'd probably have some time on my hands, I signed up to help. 

I went to the radio station and was brought to a large room with hundreds of mail tubs full of letters.  They asked us to take a tub, count by sets of 100, and spot check the letters to make sure they were appropriate, i.e., were not greeting cards that someone had just signed, pictures without any writing on it or had anything political or inappropriate.   As I combed through my large mail tub, I saw stacks and stacks of letters from people in Atlanta, Indianapolis and Nashville - the three markets that the Bert Show presently reaches.  They were on notebook paper, construction paper, personal stationary, artwork with a note inside, etc.  A lot of the letters were from kids who expressed how proud they were of the soldiers who were helping other children overseas.  There were letters from retirement homes that expressed support as many of the residents had served in WWII and the Korean War and knew what it was like to be far away from their own families for the holidays.  Letters from mothers who prayed for the soldiers safe return to their mothers, wives and children.   Many expressed in simple terms their gratitude for the service that these brave men and women were giving to our country.   It was inspiring and humbling to see so many people pour out their hearts to these strangers - praying for them and knowing that on Thanksgiving a soldier they wrote to would read their words of love and support.   

I also loved the artwork that some of the people included in their letters.   There were a lot of drawings made by tracing a little hand and coloring it to look like a Thanksgiving turkey complete with pilgrim hat.   There were letters with kids dressed as Harry Potter who represented the soldiers and a picture of Valdemort who represented the people we were fighting.   There were also pictures of the children holding the soldiers' hands and smiling.  Perhaps the one that touched me the most, was a picture that a teenage girl who was an art student drew on the back of her letter.   It's of her giving a soldier a hug.   Her notation on the back reads:  "not finished yet, but you get it :).  Me being thankful for the soldiers."   I love the expression on their faces - it's so genuine - something Norman Rockwell would be proud of. 

I left that day feeling very proud of the people who had written those letters and of helping to sort them so that they could go overseas in time for Thanksgiving.   It seems that Americans do what we've always done:  listen for an appeal on a way to make the world better and respond the best way we can.   Do we still have problems in this country?  Hell ya, but what country doesn't?  Instead of each political party vilifying each other, let's appreciate what we have here, which is that we can talk about what's wrong with the government without being hulled into prison for having that conversation. We can be grateful that our daughters can aspire to be Secretary of State or President instead of treated like second class citizens in countries where many of our soldiers are based.  In short, I got my Thanksgiving spirit back.   

I'm grateful for what I have and plan to play that forward.   Sure my job future is uncertain, but I'm trying to look at it as a chance to reinvent myself and when I apply for a job - that is one more opportunity that I didn't know about yesterday.   If I see a serviceman in uniform, I'm going to thank them for their service to our country.   It's all any of us could do no matter which side of the political aisle you sit on.  You can hate the war, but love the warrior.  Probably the best line I saw all from those stacks of letters  was from a teenager who wrote, "Heroes don't wear capes, they wear dog tags."  That's a great line - it made me realize how much people care and for that I'm grateful -- very, very grateful. 

Sense of Direction

"Mom, we've been walking around for two hours - where is the car?" asked Daniel, my 10 year old who was red faced and tired of downtown Atlanta.  "It hasn't been two hours, it's been closer to 45 minutes and I'm pretty sure it's this way."  I replied as we walked down another side street in search of our Honda Civic.  A hot June day was not the best time of year to lose your car with two kids in tow.   So many of the streets in the City Too Busy to Hate look alike and many of the ticketed parking areas are run by the same company and are identical to each other.   "Daniel, be nice, she's doing the best she can," my daughter Amber offered in my defense but the way she said it seemed like a left handed compliment.  

We had started the day down at downtown Atlanta from the highest point - the Westin Hotel - which has a restaurant on the 73rd floor that rotates so you can see for 10 to 20 miles from the top.   We saw people the size of fire ants playing in the fountains of Centennial Park.  We could see Stone Mountain which was about 20 miles away and Turner Field, home of the Atlanta Braves.  Everything was a picture perfect Atlanta day until it was time to go home.   At the fifty minute mark of the auto quest and after several prayers to Saint Anthony (the patron saint of lost things)  - we finally saw our blue car with the telltale dent in the driver's side.  The sense of relief was amazing.  Once I was in the car and turned on the AC - I drove out of Atlanta finally sure of where I was going. 

I've always been directionally challenged.    At age three I wondered away from a White House tour with my parents and four other brothers and sisters.   According to my mother, I somehow slipped out of the line and started to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.    Apparently the head of the U.S. Archive happened to be looking out his window and saw a toe headed toddler in a paisley jumper sprinting down the street holding my own hand (you always needed to hold a hand crossing streets even if the only hand to hold is yours).  He saw that I was headed away from the White House (apparently other small children had also tried to make a break for it) and sent his assistant down to get me and take me back.   I remember this very tall man with jet black hair on the sides of his head, bald on top and a thin black tie leaning over and saying "May I help you little girl?"   He picked me up and took me back to the White House lobby to my worried but relieved parents and a few Secret Service Agents.

Another time, at age four I wondered away from our camp at Yellowstone Park around dusk.   My parents looked frantically all over the trailer park where we were staying until they found me a few trailers over where I was sitting down with a retired couple eating cookies.  After all if you're going to get lost - be found by someone with a good stash of snacks.   It was not the negative reinforcement that my parents might have hoped for.   Eventually, they started to use one of those harnesses so that at least I was just an arm's length away.  Some people might have called it a kiddy leash, but for my parents, it was a tether to some peace of mind.   

I've often tried to figure out why my sense of direction is so bad.  I've relied on internet services like MapQuest only to be led astray and had to figure out how to get back home myself.   At those times when I simply cannot find my destination, I try to comfort myself in saying that I've discovered the road not taken.  That can be of little comfort when your meeting starts in 10 minutes and you should be 5 minutes away but still have no idea where you are.   When I'm lost, I feel like that scared little three year old walking alone in Washington, D.C.  However as an adult, I have developed the additional skill of being able to weave a tapestry of obscenity as I turn down another fruitless road.   

I've even tried using mobile navigators with mixed results.   I loved that episode of The Office when Michael Scott was trying to prove that man was better than machines and when his GPS told him that the road existed where it was obvious that a lake was, he drove into the water just to prove the machines were wrong.    Sometimes you can't rely on a GPS to get you where you need to go and you just flat out have to figure it out yourself.   Giving up is not an option - you have to find your way home and back to where you need to be.   

What I have found is that by going down the road not taken (mostly by accident) you find another way to get to your destination.   You see things off the beaten path - unique homes, landscapes, lakes, small towns and farms with cows and horses.  You ask strangers for directions and while some are irritated, most have empathy and are happy to point you to the right path home.    In college, I had a group of older men in a not so great neighborhood console me and give me a cup of coffee because I think they would want someone to do the same thing for their daughters.  

I think in being lost, you have a chance to figure out who you are, both the good and the bad.   The bad parts can seem like you never seem to get where you need to go either in this excursion or in life.  Every bad thing that you believe about yourself seems to crystalize in those moments of misguided isolation.  The good part at the end of the road is that you conquer the fear, loneliness, and despair to find your way back from God knows where.   In life, you'll remember to avoid those roads that take you to the wrong places both spiritually and emotionally  

I've never seen the world as a straight and narrow path but with all sorts of trails that can take you to some interesting places.   At the point of utter frustration when I've been driving around aimlessly for an hour or so, I try to calm myself by saying that I'm in a safe place, my guardian angels are with me and how much I'll really appreciate seeing my home once I get there.    I'll give Max a huge kiss and hear my children ask yet again, "Mom what took you so long - did you get lost again?"  I'll smile and say yes and tell them about the pony I saw on this back road that you wouldn't expect to see so close to Atlanta.   When you open up to those possibilities there are times when  you get to see a sunset over a neighborhood lake that looks like a golden pond with touches of pink - and those moments take your breath away.  It's something that you never would have caught on I-85 at the height of rush hour.  

Our excursion to the Westin inspired Daniel to write an essay for one of his first assignments in the 5th grade.   His teacher showed the paper to me at our last conference.    He concluded his paper with this:   "I learned three things that day - my Mom has a terrible sense of direction, the skyline of Atlanta from the Westin is awesome and when my Mom is lost, she has a very dirty mouth."