Thanksgiving, and what 'would have been'

A week or so ago, Grayson and I were having lunch. I had taken MG to Memphis the week before to see her father, who was going to the doctor to see if his cancer had come back, and because it had come back with vengeance she stayed another week to make return trips to the various doctors as Mr. McGowan made decisions on what he wanted to do next.
I was telling Grayson, who is particularly close to "Poppa" (as MG's father is called by my kids), that the prognosis was not good. And as we talked, Grayson said something to the effect of, "This would have been a horrible year if Mom had died and then Poppa died, too."

I was pleased that he said this "would have ... if", because it would be easy to stay this has been a horrible year. In one seemingly random morning last April, MG's life - and therefore the lives of my family - changed forever. That she's alive is a miracle (no one at the scene of the accident believed she'd survive, and the doctors were not overly confident those first couple of days at the hospital either). With even as much progress as MG has made, we're coming to terms that certain limitations and impairments may well be permanent.
At the same time, we all knew Poppa wouldn't be with us forever, but given his optimism and determination (this is a man who drove from St. Louis back to Memphis when he was having a heart attack because he wanted to go to his own doctor), it is hard to imagine a time without him in our lives. So when you hear a  doctor actually lay out a time-line, putting parameters on the number of days he has left, it's a little mind-numbing.

This year could easily have gone down as one of the worst for us as a family, and I don't think anyone would have blamed us. But that Gray said it "would have ...  if" said to me that despite it all, my family remains hopeful. And as I happened to hear Fess Parker, in his role as Daniel Boone, say at the end of re-run on MeTV of the other day, "A man without hope becomes not much different than an animal." Despite the source of that philosophy, I do think that hope is one of the essential characteristics of us as human beings.

And I'm reminded on this Thanksgiving weekend of the origin of the holiday of having read somewhere that the Pilgrims made seven times more graves than they did huts, yet we remember them every year for having set aside a day not to feel sorry for themselves, but to be thankful. That's the essence of hope.

I'm going to be honest here: at times, I'm not thankful. At times, I want revenge. The further we get away from The Accident and the more I realize how MG's life will never be the way it was and the guy that hit her remains out there, finally indicted but still suffering no consequence (that I'm aware of) for his action (there is no trial date set even now), and I see the consequences my family has faced and continues to face, I get angry.
There are so many seemingly inconsequential consequences of what has happened that we discover almost every day. And again, just to be completely honest, when people say to us, "You've come so far" there are times I think, "but there is only so far we'll be able to go" because more and more we're aware there is much we'll never get back.
Yes, it would be easy to say this was a horrible year.

And yet we - I - remain thankful.
The family gathered around the dinner table Thursday, sharing Thanksgiving with some good friends who, like so many of you, have walked this road with us as much as anybody can. We've got family coming into town this weekend, and it is such a blessing to have family and friends and to be as supported and cared for and loved as my family has been.

We've made the 23rd Psalm almost a cliche in our culture, something we learn to recite early in our lives and then use it so much it comes dangerously close to losing its meaning. However, a random story that I came across the other day caused me to stop and re-read this Psalm from David which, along with John 3:16, must have been one of the first parts of Scripture I ever memorized.

A minister of some kind in New Jersey named Len Deo re-wrote the 23rd Psalm in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, the effects of which the people in that part of the country are still feeling and will for years to come. We have seen the scenes of people in need, of houses destroyed, of shortages for food and water and power. He wrote it this way:

The LORD is my shepherd, and shepherds have it rough right now. He has no place to make me lie down but muddy pastures; He leads me beside troubled waters. He is giving my soul a lot of unusual work. He leads me in the paths of perseverance for a purpose I really don't see. Yea, I am walking through the aftermath of a hurricane and You are still prodding me; Your rod and Your staff, they are uncomfortable. You have filled my house with my children all day long; You anoint my head with cold showers; my impatience runneth over. Surely the good times went out with the lights, and I will dwell in my dim house for yet another day that feels like forever.

That's not how the Psalm goes, of course. But most of us can relate to the feeling. I sat down and re-wrote the Psalm for myself, filling in the way I feel right now. I won't share it because Mr. Deo's version makes the point. But it's an exercise I highly recommend.

What I was reminded of was that God does not stop being good just because our circumstances become difficult. I continue to trust Him, because where else can I turn? And I don't mean that as a last resort kind of statement, but one that time and life has proven to me to be the best and safest and surest 'resort.' I know I can trust Him through anything and everything.

So here we are, nearing the end of this year that has changed our lives so dramatically, that promises to continue to alter our lives for years to come.
I am thankful for my wife being alive (as painful as that is for her); for my kids (and the laughter as well as the serious discussions we share when we get together); for my extended family and that after 20-something years of uncomfortable interaction my father-in-law and I finally resolved what I should call him (another blog for another day); for a job in this economy (and learning that my hope is not in my job but truly in the Lord); for experiencing the love and care of friends and community who became and continue to be the very hands and feet of Christ in very real, practical ways; so many things.

But mostly, I'm thankful that this "would have been" a horrible year, but wasn't ... not because no one died (although there is that), but because through it all we remain hopeful.

And as Czechoslovakian poet and president Vaclav Havel once wrote, "Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out."