Giving thanks

Tomorrow will be Corinne's first Thanksgiving.  She has experienced other holidays (well, in the way that an infant can experience holidays), but this is her first major holiday.

Holidays have been really...rough...for me the last 3 years.  My mother died in 2009, just a few weeks after her 64th birthday. She was an active, vibrant, seemingly-healthy woman who was running marathons in her 40s and 50s.  She got lung cancer without any known risk factors (didn't smoke, no family history, no chemical exposures) and died about 2.5 years after her diagnosis.  Her death was not what I had expected it to be.  It was worse.  Much worse.  I hope the images burned into my brain from those last days, hours, and minutes disappear someday.

I considered her my only parent.  I have a father who stopped doing anything fatherly when I was about 8 years old.  In fact, he hasn't contacted me in more than 2 years.  I still send him cards for holidays and his birthday, and I, of course, sent him a birth announcement when Corinne was born.  I've gotten no response.  Of course, he's been long gone, so I stopped expecting anything from him years ago.  So my mom was my parent.  Both my parents.  She was all I really needed anyway.  She was more than enough parent for both of them.  But when she died, I was parentless.  Orphaned.  I came to realize she held us all together, and now we've fallen apart.  My sisters and I spent Christmas together the year she died. It was full of hurt feelings and bitterness.  We haven't done it again but supposedly will repeat it this year.  Who knows what that will be like.  I have no major expectations, but I have had the thought, once or twice, that it might be nice to spend time with my family all together again.  Minus Mom.

Anyway, the holidays just weren't the same after Mom died.  I felt mostly empty and didn't really want to do anything at all.  Let them come and go.  Better not to even try to get excited or acknowledge them.  Just another thing in my life that was bitter and painful.

This year is different for me.  I've always dreamt of sharing the joy of the holidays with my own family, my own children and our little family unit.  This year, my excitement is somewhat renewed, knowing that I'm sharing this with Corinne for the first time.  She probably won't even know it's a holiday until she gets older, but it has a lot of meaning for me.  It's about new beginnings.  It's about reasons to be hopeful.  It's about anticipating many joyful moments with my little one in the future. Establishing family traditions.  Watching her light up at her first glimpse of our Christmas tree.  Someday helping her bake holiday goodies with mommy.  Good things are coming in the future.   For a long time I was just unable to see things that way, and now I can.

So today I am thankful for my beautiful child, who brings joy back into the holidays (and everyday life) for me, who is the most beautiful and meaningful part of my life, and who gives me reason to keep getting out of bed every morning and keep living.