Thanksgiving 2018
Before we knew it, we found ourselves on the verge of Thanksgiving 2018, and its sudden and seemingly all-too-early arrival has caught all of us by surprise and, perhaps, dismay.
It seemed like it was only yesterday when the sultry, humid August-like days of early October dictated the running of our summertime air conditioners. A month later, an atypical cooling of November caused us to flip the switch on our thermostats to forced and heated air, as if the summer skipped autumn altogether and brought us into the chill of winter.
Amid Mother Nature’s manic meanderings, our summertime sweat turned into wintertime’s congestion with all of the associated sneezing, hacking and coughing- symptoms that usually hold off until just before the yearly bacchanalia known as Hanukkah to some, Christmas to most and then, New Year’s to all.
Perhaps, as the fifties of our last decade have now become the sixties of the next in the progression of our own age, it merely seems that time is passing with evermore acceleration. It is as though it was only yesterday when President Trump won his all but unlikely victory over Hillary Clinton, and we have already passed the mid-term elections two years later. In two months, the president will begin the second half of his first term- wherever did the time go?
Despite all of the angst, and ups and downs of the past year(s), we have much for which to be thankful on this Thanksgiving of 2018. We still live in the greatest country on earth. We still enjoy the blessings of freedom. We still take pride in our independence and the attendant rights of free speech, writing, religion and whether or not we choose to bear arms- rights largely unattainable in the world at large. For most of us, our cupboards and tables are bountiful and the hunger and deprivation affecting much of the world are things that, in a relative sense, have eluded our very fortunate selves who happen to call ourselves Americans.
Sure, there are as always, the ever-looming threats of international and domestic upheaval, the uncertainty of economic stability, the murkiness and unpredictability that goes hand-in-hand with changing cultures and behavioral norms which at once are concurrently menacing, and yet liberating, all in the same moment. It is, after all, the distinctly human dichotomy that while we enjoy what we perceive to be the comfort and caring of family and friends, we also know in the back of our minds how fleeting and momentary such blessings might prove to be. Life has a cruel way of reminding all of us that what is here, today, might well be gone, tomorrow, and that we better be thankful for what we have because, in the end, all is temporary, even for the most secure among us.
Perhaps this is why we have a Thanksgiving in the United States- to take one day, regardless of our differences, to say thanks for the blessings that are bestowed upon us. Such is the unique nature of this very American holiday. We may be black or white, we may be Protestant, Catholic, Muslim or Jew, we may be devout in our beliefs or even agnostic, but we can all be thankful for the freedoms we enjoy- freedoms that much of the world can only dream of but that we in the United States regard as ordinary, expected and guaranteed by our Constitution.
So, it is with all of this in mind that we extend our very best wishes to you and yours for a happy and blessed Thanksgiving, with thoughts and prayers that the bounty we all enjoy today, may be ours tomorrow and always.
Good tidings, all.
-Drew Nickell, 21 November 2018
© 2018 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.
author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”
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