Thanksgiving Part One.

This last weekend was Thanksgiving up here in Canada, for those of you from the US, where Thanksgiving is in a different month, or those of you from countries where you are wondering "Huh?  Thanksgiving?  What?"  Yes, it was Thanksgiving, that holiday right after "harvest time" where we give thanks for all that we have.

Last year, both my Dad and Joel were here, together.  This year, we were two people short of a full family on the Kasper/Smith clan side of things.

This year as we approached the holiday, I went through the pain and difficulty of facing those missing places.  Though the day that my family celebrated was a peaceful, peaceful day...  I am sure there were people praying for me, because I felt the same sense of peace that I have sometimes had at other difficult times.  On that day, I felt just a great, great peace.  I have hosted many, many family meals and struggled with being bossy and grouchy in my kitchen.  I have felt flustered at times.  Hectic.  Rushed.  But this day I felt none of that... just peace, peace, peace.  I cooked a turkey and set the table and served desserts and ... sorry, there is no other word for peace. I'll add "at ease, unruffled, serene," but at peace really says it best.

So if you prayed, THANK YOU.  000000

If you didn't, that's OK.  Someone else was covering for you.  ;)

I wanted to write this post, writing the things I am so thankful for, because a friend of mine and I were talking about this holiday and she asked we had to be thankful for.  Indeed, I have written about my "peas" that I must count, and the sorrows and pains and disappointments I have.  They are still all there.  But most days, so is thankfulness.  And I 'd like to talk about that.

But I'm going to start off backwards, in a sense.  I'm going to start with a brief (I promise, BRIEF!) little summary of what I have been grieving lately.  I spent a good bit of time grieving Joel's age.  For several weeks, I had many cries over the fact that he was only two and a half.  That is just what really was hitting me.  I only got two and a half years.  He was only two and half when he died.  That hurt me so.  We didn't even get to three.  I can't believe I lost a child who would have only been a toddler...

Now, it just is the constant feeling that I have had ever since Joel died.  It says, in my heart "Something precious has gone out of this house."  I use the word "something" and not "someone" because it somehow gets more at the meat of what I am saying.  Sure, it is Joel HIMSELF that I long for.  But I say "I miss Joel" too, all day long.  This is a bit of a different feeling, in a way...  The first night he was not there, I felt it so strongly.  Something precious had gone from our house.  And day by day, I still feel it, at times more strongly, at times less.

Because Joel brought "something" into our house and into our lives.  I don't know what to term that "something" exactly.  But it was precious and beautiful.  So I will fumble along to convey to you what I mean, with a language that is limited, but is the best I can do.  I suppose we all can understand that the people in our lives bring something special to us.  Each person, their own special something, into our hearts.  As if each soul sang it's own special song.  And in our family, there were four little songs playing together.  Mostly harmonizing, playing and inter playing, like one of those genius compositions where each instrument has a special tune.  And the music was full, complete, and astounding.

And when Joel died, it was immediately as though that sweet little tune his soul was playing in our house stopped short.  There was something missing.  The music played on, but it was not the same.  If that sweet little song had never played, I would have never missed it.  I would have thought that the music of our house was only in three parts.  But I did hear that music.  I lived with that four singing music for over two years.  And now I feel the loss of "something" precious.  The music that I can no longer hear.  It still play up in heaven.  But my hearing here is not good enough to hear it from so far away.

And so I miss the something precious that has gone out of our house...

I just needed to say that, to acknowledge that part of it, before I could go on to tell you about my thankful list.  Which is coming up, in part two...