Thursday, November 22, 2012

It is Thanksgiving and someone else's child is dead.

It is Thanksgiving and a local teenager has died. Another is in the hospital. In this small town, we are all connected by the Facebook accounts of our adolescent kids. Somebody's child was taken to the hospital and for another's it was too late. I can feel the haunting of another parent's nightmare tugging at my shirt. They start to look like vases, like china, these half-grown children. They clink like nearly-broken glass. You gasp and only exhale when you see that this time they are whole.

This is the problem with gratitude. The sharp edge on which it lives. I am grateful, grateful beyond words. I could fall upon their sleeping bodies sobbing, my prayer catching in my throat,

"Thank God it wasn't you."

There is something fundamentally animal about it. I am glad for what I have. Whatever I have, someone else must do without. If I have food, someone else is starving. If I have warmth someone else is cold. If I look on with pride at the living, chattering antics of my three children, someone else is sitting by a grave, trying to imagine how to live. Yes, yes, I am grateful. A thousand times grateful. But, I often wonder:  is there really a religion to be made of this? Is this gratitude-shouting a practice that smooths the edges of my troubled soul? Is this worthy of the Facebook statuses of an entire month?

And perhaps it is. It is good to remember that I could be that mourner, that woman waking in a hospital to learn that my child has left the earth, lest I forget to kiss my child. It is good to remember that I could be without food, when I am angry that I am without kick-ass boots. But this seems a shallow place to stop, if there my feet rest in their tracks—this "I am grateful today for all I have."

I have to think that any gratitude of meaning would challenge us to do far more. If we are grateful for our wonderful food, what part of it might we share? If we are happy that we have our family, have we welcomed in those who have none? No, mostly I didn't and I haven't. Too often, I fail to practice gratitude—the gratitude of gifts and welcomes or the gratitude of the heart, too often I fail at both of these. Maybe it would do my heart some good to post a thank you each running day of November. But I don't. I won't. Because if I am grateful out loud to the Universe on Facebook for the life of my child, what am I saying the world meant for hers? I will keep my gratitude to myself and offer this thank you instead.

Today I thank the first nations whose gift we took without asking, that allowed every bit of plenty we enjoy today. I thank the slaves who never were free, the workers who toiled to build the nation, the immigrants who were called names. I thank everyone history has forgotten, who gave me what I have. I do not know your names, but I remember you today. For your lives I say a prayer. I thank the turkey and his farmer, the butcher and the growers of the food. I thank my husband for supporting me and my mother for helping me cook. I thank my children for chopped potatoes, for warm hugs and for the purpose of my life.

And I offer a prayer of tears in solidarity with the mother who has just yesterday lost her son. I will eat and I will laugh, but I will not forget. I will not forget.

It is Thanksgiving and someone else's child is dead.

21 comments:

  1. Powerful and poignant, as always, Tara. I think any expression of gratitude is a step in the right direction. My best wishes to all of you today.

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  2. Powerful and poignant, as always, Tara. I think any expression of gratitude is a step in the right direction. My best wishes to all of you today.

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    1. I expect, Margi, that you are right. Scientists even say it is good for the brain. I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

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  3. Very touching. I am so sorry for her loss and the loss for your community. Offered a prayer for strength for the family. I do wish you a day filled with love.

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    1. Thank you, Winnie. I always feel at loose ends in situations like this, where I don't know those involved very well, but where their lives somehow touch mine. I think a prayer of strength is helpful. And we had a nice Thanksgiving all the same. I hope you did, too.

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  4. I often fail at gratitude as well..But we try, and I'm thankful for the reminders to exercise gratitude to its full extent.
    My thoughts and prayers are with that family too...

    Happy Thanksgiving, Tara.

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    1. You do try, Larissa and your life and your family's speaks to a gratitude with warm hands and sturdy boots. You are an inspiration.

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  5. wow. Just wow. You have such a way with words. Such a way of touching my heart and opening my mind. I am going to save this in my google reader. It gets a star to remind me to read it again. And I think I may want to share this in my Sunday post, where I share things I have seen that inspired me. Would that be okay?

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    1. Yes, you're always welcome to share anything I write, Tamara. I'm glad it touched your heart. I'm never sure when I'm writing these things if it's a good idea or not.

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  6. What you write about here, Tara, is the sense of empathy and compassion that makes us human. And it also expresses the sad fact that no human is perfect; we do what we can in a practical way for others, but everybody will fall short. Understanding this is part of the compassion. One of the hardest and most important lessons is learning how to forgive yourself for those shortcomings. (A little of my Mythmaker philosophizing here, I'm afraid.)

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    1. I think you're right, Lorinda. Your words reflect your greater wisdom. I tend to be hard on that falling short—harder than is always good. A lot of what I write is just thought finger-paint out there for everyone to see. It was also was my intention to remind myself TO do what I can, in case I forget to do that, which I sometimes do.

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  7. What a devastating loss for the community, for the family.

    For the rest of it ... I have always had this sense, this knowledge that all the good material things I have in this life -- I have because someone else does not. I've tried explaining it, and all I've gotten are bewildered looks from people who just don't get it. But I have always known that I have this warm house because someone lives the life of a coal miner, that I have this wool coat because someone works in a factory under god-knows-what conditions, that I have cotton sheets and coffee in the morning because some child's family is growing cotton and coffee for me, instead of food for that child.

    It's a terrible knowledge, and I am glad that there is someone else walking around with it -- if that makes any sense.

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    1. Alicia, thank you so much for your comment. I know exactly what you mean. I recognize the bewildered looks. It's not that I am trying to be a downer, and I'm sure you're not. It's just that there is no much noisesome pain in the background of the relative luxury of my life, historically and currently. Sometimes, I have to remind myself to pause and say thank you to all those that provide me what I have—whether they want to or not—and to remember their pain before diving into all with which I'm blessed.

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  8. This is hauntingly beautiful, Tara. One of my favorite hymns we sing says, "Because I have been given much, I, too, must give.
    Because of thy great bounty, Lord, each day I live.
    I shall divide my gifts from thee, with every brother that I see.
    That he, too, may be comforted."

    It's a good thing to remember all those that have given so much so that we can be thankful.

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    1. That is a lovely hymn, Jewels and a perfect expression of gratitude.

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  9. Thank you for allowing me to share this post with my friends. Here is a link to today's post:

    http://faithandsubstance.blogspot.com/2012/11/sunday-thoughts-and-some-pictures_25.html

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    1. Thanks, Tamara. I really enjoyed the whole post. Thanks for including me.

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  10. Hi Tara, through the mysteriously connected labyrinth of the blog-world and in my intermittent attempts to sit down and read the entire internet at one go, I found your blog back in the summer. Your title caught me; I have a love-hate relationship with ambiguity. It always messes with my already teeter-tottering thoughts - about everything, and about Jesus/God especially. I've since read a number of your posts - so often thought-provoking and humbling and encouraging. So thank you.

    I am currently living in Israel-Palestine, in Jerusalem - a city divided by race, religion, gender, economy, and much more. A place with a messy history of struggle between the now-have's and the had's and the now-have-not's and the scared-not-to-have's. (Hope you caught all that!) It so often feels like a zero-sum game.

    Last week, leading up to thanksgiving, there were 8 days of bombing and rockets in Gaza. 172 lives were violently ended and hundreds of bodies injured. So much senseless death. I honestly knew little about Gaza when I arrived here a few months ago, but as I've developed relationships with Palestinians in my East Jerusalem community, I've discovered that everyone knows someone in Gaza. A colleague, an aunt, yes, even a husband. Everyone in my office spent those 8 days throwing together a prayer service and staring at horrible pictures on Facebook as if it could ease the ache. The day before thanksgiving a truce finally ushered in reprieve. On thanksgiving day, I woke up and put on black. That evening I attended a funeral.

    Your post made me cry. Especially your prayer at the end. Thank you for the recognition of those who suffer, even in the midst of others' blessing. Thank you for pushing us all toward generosity in lieu of vacuous words. I have to believe that though generosity erases no injustice, it somehow multiplies what could before only be added and subtracted. Love bends the natural order of things. Solidarity changes the equation, and ushers in forgiveness.

    Megan

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    1. Megan,

      Wow! I don't even know how to reply. Thank you so much for sharing your story. I often think of Israel and Palestine and am left simply shaking my head and trying to ward off the tragedy of it all. You are the first person who has personally connected with me in any way that lives there, and I will never again think of Gaza without picturing your wearing black. I think you are right that solidarity and love do change things. And that continues to be my prayer.

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