By Hollie Sessoms
A
ON TYBEE
fter the floods have receded and the damage has been tallied and the repair work has begun, the only thing you have left to do
TYBEE BEACHCOMBER | NOV 2017 7
is be thankful.
Sometimes thankfulness doesn’t come easy. Sometimes we need a reason, a push, to look at all the blessings in our life.
Sometimes a holiday can come at just the right time, just when we couldn’t go another step, slogging on in the same direction.
Sometimes we can just decide to be thankful right here and right now.
This Thanksgiving will probably be hard for many of us on Tybee. “I don’t even have walls yet, am I supposed to be thankful for
that?” you might cry. And yes, I say, yes, even for this, even for this ruined home, I am thankful.
A quick glance at all the people who came together on Tybee to help in the time after the flood, will give anyone a reason to be thankful - from those who
donated meals and their precious time to those who donated furniture - how can we not be thankful? Times of crisis are so powerful and so precious because
they show us the humanity in all of us—the well of warmth and kindness that is just looking for a place to be put to use.
Besides, who even wants a perfect Thanksgiving? Who even remembers the ones with the succulent turkey and fluffy mashed potatoes and relatives who
behaved themselves? I’ll take the one where I drank too much wine and filled up on deviled eggs before the turkey was done and fell asleep at 6:00 with my
pants undone and the burned sweet potato casserole still sitting on the countertop, uneaten.
“But I don’t even have countertops!” you might yell.
Perfect! Do something wild and different this Thanksgiving. Go out to eat Mexican food, pilgrims and Indians be damned. And yes, even for this, even for this
Thanksgiving meal of beans and rice, be thankful.
The table is the perfect place to put all your cares and worries and leave with something bigger and better. Come to the table to sit and be thankful for the
peace and plenty in your life. Come to the table to serve someone else and be thankful for the opportunity to show your love. Come to the table to pray. Come
to the table to laugh. Come to the table this Thanksgiving and just be.
If you can’t be thankful for what you have, be thankful for what you don’t have. Be thankful for all the terrible fates that did not fall on you. Whatever has
happened to you, it could always be worse. “I once cried because I had no shoes,” Helen Keller said, “until I met a man who had no feet.”
And we are here right now, and we are here together, and we are stronger now than we ever have been. And for that, I’m thankful.