Thanksgiving 2021

It's a few days before Thanksgiving, and a good time to pause and consider all for which I am thankful.

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This year, like most, has been a mixed bag of good and bad. I got to resume travel after a year of staying home due to the pandemic. After being fully vaccinated, I traveled to Tanzania on a fabulous photo safari. I met two great women with whom I plan to return to Tanzania in a year or so. I am grateful for the warm and welcoming Tanzanian people who took such good care of us.

I wrapped up four surgeries to remove kidney stones in February, and I am so grateful for the new urologist who treated me and who continues to monitor my kidney health.

I am grateful for my friend who continues to provide transportation home after surgery and after trips to the retina specialist who monitors my vision. We were able to resume our traditional monthly lunches out, once the weather was good enough that we could eat outdoors. 

I am thankful for my retina specialist, who is a wonderful, skilled and kind man, and I am so grateful to have him in my corner.  And I am so thankful that my eyes are still good enough to allow me to follow my passion of wildlife and landscape photography.

I am grateful for my good health and for being able to walk 4 miles every day. When so many my age face serious and debilitating health problems, I am still active and healthy. I don't need a walker or a cane, and I don't need supplemental oxygen as do so many.

I am thankful that my daughter appears to be doing well in her job and as a new mother. I am grateful that her baby son is healthy and happy.

I am thankful for the many opportunities to travel this year -- to Yellowstone and Glacier national parks on photography tours, to Yosemite National Park on a photo tour, and to Death Valley and Joshua Tree national parks for photography. I also visited my sister and brother in Oregon, for the first time in too many years. 

As the weather turns cold, I am grateful for my wonderful, warm house with its beautiful views of the mountains. I am grateful for my two dogs that keep me on my toes every day and love me beyond words. I am grateful to have adopted a puppy and for the opportunity to train her to become a wonderful, obedient companion as she grows up. 

Unlike so many, I have more than enough to eat, I have warm clothes, a reliable car and good health insurance. I have money to cover any emergencies that pop up.

I am grateful to live in a free country where people are allowed to vote without fear of repercussions, although the recent spate of laws designed to suppress the vote of millions of people concerns me greatly. I value our ability to peacefully protest. I am grateful for the members of our military who keep us safe and free, and for the first responders who daily risk their lives in service to others. I am particularly grateful for the nurses, respiratory therapists, physicians and other medical staff who daily risk their lives to care for Covid patients, most of whom are ill because they refused the sensible and safe step of being vaccinated against this terrible virus.

I will prepare a sort of Thanksgiving meal this year for the first time in a few years. I have bought a smoked turkey, and although I will dine alone, I will enjoy a somewhat traditional Thanksgiving meal. I won't make mashed potatoes or have dessert or cranberries, but the essence of the meal will be there.  

I will spend a quiet day at home, knowing I have plenty to eat and thinking about the many blessings in my life. Because in the end, regardless of our troubles, we in this country still do have much for which to be thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.