Mini!Essay: What Thanksgiving Means to Me

[thothmes]

Thirteen years ago, just before Thanksgiving, I had just gone out with heavy heart to buy two copies of two different Christmas ornaments. We were going to send one copy of each (one fragile ornament, and one nearly impossible to break ornament) off with our beloved seventeen month old foster daughter when she was sent off to live with her biological mother's brother and sister-in-law. She'd been with us since two weeks after her first birthday. The transfer was imminent, pending their official approval as foster parents in Kentucky where they resided. This way she would always have something tangible as evidence of her short stay in our lives. We would keep the duplicates for our tree, to mark her place in our hearts and our family.

Then, on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, her aunt and uncle called to say that they had done their research on "artificial twinning" (they have a daughter whose birthday is just two weeks later than our then-foster daughter's) and had considered the effect on their niece of disrupting the bond she had started to develop with us, and had pondered and prayed, and had decided that the best thing would be to let her stay with us and be our daughter. A true act of trust and selfless generosity. Our two older kids stood speechless as we thanked them profusely, hung up the phone, and burst into tears of grateful relief, drawing them all into a family hug.

That year my oldest daughter was told in art class to make a placemat showing what she was thankful for. It was her sister. It takes pride of place on our table every Thanksgiving. At Christmas all four ornaments hang on the tree, until the day when she moves to a place of her own and takes her copies with her.

I am truly blessed. I have a soft life, and everything I need. Not everything I want, but that would be bad for me, and I know this. But that one moment, for me, will always flavor the thankfulness I feel on this holiday.