Thankful-Part One

This is a picture of the old New Point Wharf. I went down here last week in search of a house that a reader--who used to summer in Mathews many moons ago--asked me about. I was lucky enough to find the house for her and sent her pictures of it as it stands now. She was grateful for my efforts, but I was more grateful for the chance to reconnect someone with this place called Mathews, which harbors such fond memories for those of us fortunate enough to have grown up here.

Val from Monkeys on the Roof tagged me to participate in a Thanksgiving meme (or moo moo as Grandma J. would say).

I highly recommend you click on the link and check out Val’s website--especially my one or two readers from Mathews. 'Cause if you think we live in a different world, you ain’t seen nothin’ ‘til you read about her way of life. Plus, if you’d like to see what a real writer with real talent produces, you’ll want to read her stuff. It’s amazing.

I’m supposed to list seven things I’m thankful for.

I’m sure most people could conquer this challenge in one post. “I’ll take 7 Things I’m Thankful For for $200, Chuck, but please don’t let Chesapeake Bay Woman into this category, because we’ll be here all night listening to her answers and I really can’t wade through all that stuff she spews forth.”

Yes, I am a bit verbose, and it will be an effort to limit Things I’m Thankful For to only seven, so I will attempt to tackle each thing I’m thankful for one post at the time. Or by tomorrow it may be two or three at the time. Because by Thanksgiving Thursday if I only focused on one thing per day, I would not have enough days left to reach seven things to be thankful for. For which to be thankful. For.

Perhaps I ought to be thankful that I didn’t major in English or math. (7 things in 3 days....if a train leaving a station going 50 miles per hour had 7 things to be grateful for and only 3 days left to post it, how fast would it be going?)

First Thing I’m Thankful For: Health

When I say health, I mean my health, my family’s health, and my friends’ health. Plus anyone remotely connected to family or friends…their health. I feel so fortunate that everyone I’m close to—especially my children—are in good health.

Now when I say good health I am talking about physical health, because mental health would be a topic for another blog and we best not push our luck with this whole health thing. My point is that we all enjoy decent, if not pretty darn good, physical health which we sometimes—OK always--take for granted.

When I worked in Corporate America, which was definitely detrimental to my health, we had a Pep Talk Guru come in and analyze us to death to figure out what mattered to us most. When all was said and done, after I answered a gazillion questions and left a DNA sample for them to test, my most fundamental need boiled down to health-–thankfully not wealth.

There are many people out there battling any number of diseases or who are supporting friends/family members with ailments, some life-threatening. Even in those less-than-desirable-situations there are things to be thankful for: health insurance (if you’re fortunate enough to have it); good health care (if you’re fortunate enough to have access to it); amazing technology (ditto); and most of all this:

The intangible gift of hope, faith and miracles.

To be continued the day after tomorrow, because tomorrow's when a "Guest Contributor" will post one of the two funniest stories I've ever heard. So on Thanksgiving Thursday, I'll be listing out the remaining 6 things I'm thankful for.

Nice math skills, Chesapeake Bay Woman.