Thanksgiving is just a few days away. It’s a day to give thanks, a time to remember what you are grateful for and to be with family. As I write this, the Thanksgiving as I knew it is no longer what it used to be for me.
Yes, I’m so very grateful for our service members that service members both here in the U.S.A. and those serving overseas. I can’t help but to thank them every time, regardless if I meet them on the street or when I send one a letter as a volunteer for the Soldiers Angels Letter Writing Team. I’m grateful for my health and to be alive.
It’s remembering the holidays of my childhood that I start getting tears in the corner of my eyes. The memories are bittersweet. My grandparents on Dad’s side have long since passed away, their home in town gone so that a local bank could build a new building there. My grandmother on Mom’s side is still alive, in the nursing home. The farm will see many more holidays, but with another family. I have so many memories of the holidays at both places, but they are just that, memories. Physically going back to these place is no longer possible and yet that is where I want to be.
I visit my grandmother twice a week at the nursing home. I’m grateful that she is still alive for me to visit with. The downside is that I’m slowly drift away as dementia takes her away from me. She still knows me, but she doesn’t as the last visit she introduced me to another resident as a niece.
At least for now, she can still remember to give me one request at the end of every visit. “Give the boys a hug and a kiss for me,” she always says. The boys being my Jack Russell Jake and her Rat Terrier mix Buddy. She loves them both and is thankful that I’m caring for her beloved Buddy. So twice a week, the boys get a hug and a kiss delivered to them from Grandma.
It’s the least I can do for her.
Jake and Buddy
