Thankful for Thanksgiving

This year Susan and I are so thankful to celebrate Reagan’s first thanksgiving. We are so thankful for our happy and healthy little baby girl. She amazes us each and every day. As excited as we are to charge into Reagan’s first holiday season, we must also embrace the sorrow that comes with first holiday’s without my Mom.

I can’t even express in words how sad I am to face the holiday season without my mom.  Out of a lifetime of being loving, Mom really shined over the holidays. From October through December she had kids and grandkids’ birthdays, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. All special days which revolve around Mom’s specialties, cooking and gifts.  Therefore I can’t help but feel sadness during this time, much like my siblings, their families, our extended families, close friends, those missing their pecan pie, and those who will not receive their little personalized gift in their Barton mailbox this year. Fortunately Mom left us so many reasons to be thankful.  

I am thankful for the memory of last thanksgiving. Mom hadn’t hosted a thankgiving in years. And even when she had it kind of dwindled into the smallest remainder of our family. But last year, Mom’s condo was filled wall to wall with love. At dinnertime, the table literally stretched wall to wall. Mom really put on something special last year. At one table she had her children, grandchildren, close friends and family. We actually had to move her living room furniture into the bedroom to fit the banquet table she bought just for that day. Mom worked way harder than she should have and would only accept our help if we gave her no other option. Mom, who hates crowds of people, was so happy to have crowded her condo with so much love. It was the perfect day. Even when Bailey came out of the master bedroom (a.k.a. pie storage) with a beard of pumpkin pie on his face, Mom was unphased.  She was probably just happy that poor Bailey was finally able to eat some people food. I’m so thankful that Mom decided to host last year. I’m so thankful so many of us were together. I’m so thankful for that wonderful Thanksgiving.

I’m just as thankful for the thanksgiving the year before. Mom came to my house and had thanksgiving dinner prepared for her by her baby and his wife mere months after their nuptials. When you’re the baby of the family, I think you’re always the baby. It doesn’t matter what you do, how old you get, or what you have accomplished. You’re the baby. Well two years ago Mom sat at our table, set with our wedding china, in our home, with a dinner prepared by her youngest and his bride and hopefully was able to take comfort in seeing her baby was grown up enough to host thanksgiving. Everything tasted wonderfully and was the perfect output of Susan and I working together.

I have 28 more thanksgiving stories (including a complete thanksgiving at a campsite) that I will spare you.  I will say that perhaps what I am most thankful for is the years of learning I had under Mom’s tutelage teaching me the ins and outs of making special days special. I promise to do my best Mom.

Susan, Reagan, Bailey, Micki, and I would like to wish you all a happy thanksgiving. We hope your day is filled with love, family, friends, and memories of special days you have all shared. Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours. 

Stop and Smell the Roses

I met a man today who told me his story. I was walking the two blocks from Chapman to the first non-permit street parking, where I park M-F, and I stopped to ask a question about roses. On this route of mine there is this beautiful little yellow house with rose bushes everywhere and whatever colorful flower the season permits. Every blade of grass is a crisp green surrounded by a white picket fence. It looks like something out of  Thomas Kincade painting or some place that Brenda would want to live.

Anyway, I stopped to ask the elderly home owner a few questions about his roses. This is what I learned:

He doesn’t know about the roses. His wife takes care of them. He joined the marines after high school. On the way down to boot camp the train stopped in Orange and he had an hour to walk around before the train continued down the tracks to San Diego. He thought to himself: “I like this little town.” After his commitment to the Marine Corps was up, he headed home to Michigan to attend Wesley College (Wesley University at the time). When he graduated he was ready to start the adult chapter of his life, but where? How about that little town called Orange he had spent an hour 10 years before? He spent the rest of his life in Orange. He married a woman, had a daughter and they lived together for years raising their child. Eventually she “wanted to live a different life” (I did not follow up). So he was single, in his 50s, hosting an office Christmas party, when he saw a beautiful 30 something friend of his secretary. “I kissed her that night, by the file cabinets between the As and the Cs.” She pulled back, things got awkward.  “She must of thought, ‘who is this old guy shmooching me.”’ A week later his secretary asked why he hadn’t called her friend. They had been together for 35 years and together they raised her 3 sons. Now they have 11 grandchildren and 4 great grand children. The four great grand children call him “Great Papa.”

I learned much more, but I wont share every detail. I enjoyed my ten minutes with this 85 year old retired insurance salesmen. He stood in the middle of a lawn, rake in hand, leaves surrounding his feet, and a warm smile on his face. His name is Bob Junstalls.

Every now and again you get the opportunity to meet someone. You get the opportunity to learn about the life of a stranger. Just like most people, I miss most of these opportunities by playing with my smart phone, reading, or even just ignoring the opportunity so it doesn’t slow down my day.  I’m going to try to embrace these possibilities more often in the future. Before I walk by, go to my phone, or open my book, I’ll ask myself “What would Morrie do? How about Tad, John, or Ginny?” I bet they would stop, and ask about the roses.