Thanksgiving

        Every year it comes and every year I eat.  I am always thankful for turkey, green beans, rolls made from scratch, pie and of course sweet potatoes!  What Thanksgiving dinner is complete without sweet potatoes.  We have always enjoyed spending the holidays with our family and this year was no exception.  I have never really thought too much about what I'm thankful for I guess because I've always just been, well, thankful.

           I remember one particular Thanksgiving when I was younger, as we were all forming a line to get our food, the familiar aroma of burnt marsh mellows filled the air.  Every year my aunt would make sweet potatoes and every year she would burn the marsh mellows. This was my favorite food on Thanksgiving and I didn't like burnt marsh mellows.  After a while I thought maybe it was intentional because it was always without fail.   Everyone would joke and laugh about how she never misses a year.  I thought maybe someone else should make them and maybe they wouldn't burn.

       The first Thanksgiving after she passed away we all got in line to get our food as we had done every year since I could remember.  I scanned the table to see what I was going to fill my plate with,  and there it was, a dish of sweet potatoes with perfectly browned marsh mellows.  For the first time I had wished there were burnt marsh mellows on the table.  I never had thought about how thankful I truly was for burnt marsh mellows until she was gone.

      It has now been four years since she has passed and every year at this time I look forward to sweet potatoes, hoping for just one burnt marsh mellow.  Not because my taste for them has changed, but to hold onto the memory when times were simple and being thankful came easily.  I didn't know what this holiday was really about until I became much older. For me it was always a time to get together with family and eat all of my favorite foods.  It was an excuse to be out of school, off of work, and no need to cook or do dishes.  It may still be all of those things, but it is so much more than that.

         This Thanksgiving I have had to learn how to be thankful for things in my life that I never thought I could be.  For the time I got to have with an aunt  I can't spend Thanksgiving with any longer.  For a son I'll never know while here on earth but got to know within my womb.  I am learning to be thankful for the days, for the moments that you may think wont matter.  When my little girl curls up in my lap and tells me I'm her best friend.  When my little boy does something that makes him laugh from his gut that I can't help but laugh with him.  When my husband comes home after a long day at work and kisses me on the forehead and tells me that he missed me.  When my mother calls me and we laugh about things I did when I was a little girl.  These are the moments that make up our lives.  These are the memories that we take with us through the years when being thankful is not so easy.  This year I am thankful for so much more than I ever thought I could be.  I am thankful for the memories no matter how simple they may be.