I have so much to be thankful this Thanksgiving and am at the age I have finally figured out all this fuss we make over it is just about being with family. We all hear that every year, but it sometimes takes a lot of time to really sink in. My blog this week will be short with lots of photos highlighting who and what I am grateful for. The above picture is of my dad and some uncles and aunts building a house for one of my uncles to live in at mom and dads’ peach orchard.
First of all – I am thankful for my mother and father, Roy and Gladys Parker, and my grandmother and grandfather, Chancey and Clara Taylor. Grandpa Taylor is where I got my bright red hair. You can’t tell it from this picture, which was taken on their wedding day in 1899.
I am grateful for my brother Ronald, shown here with our mother and father and the second photo is Ron dressed up at the annual Crazy Days Sale in our hometown. I am also grateful for my sister-in-law, Sammie (in the red blouse), and their boys, Stephen and Curtis, shown in the third photo at a family reunion. I remember Ron taking me for a trip to the river with him and a friend of his named Everett Long. He was so afraid I would drown in the river that he wouldn’t let me out of Everett’s truck. He made me stay in the bed of the truck and let me play with a kitten they had with them. Not sure why they had a kitten, but I assume it was Everett’s.
I am grateful for my aunts and uncles in the photos below. Every one of them had a different life and personality that helped me learn that not everybody is going to always get along. No two people have the same way of doing things, or raising their families, or even looking at the events that happen in life.
And last, but not least, this is a shot of part of the extended Parker family from many years ago. Part of me can be traced back to everyone in this picture, from cousins and aunts and uncles to Grandma and Grandpa Parker, who I never had the pleasure of meeting.
My one wish for this Thanksgiving is that every family has the chance to be together for a little while, at least, and that nobody forgets what they have to be thankful for. To some it may not seem like much, but there is always something. I have never had what folks consider to be a blessed or easy life, but I can see now that even when I didn’t have that roof over my head, or a job to pay the bills, it eventually turned around, and I had so much more than I ever realized I had.
I fear I have started preaching now. My sincerest apologies. I just wish everyone has the best Thanksgiving ever. Not just this year, but in every year to come. Happy Thanksgiving to everybody!
