the blessings

my family is a small family. there just aren't many of us. my parents only had two children. i only had two children. my brother only had two children and now one lives east and the other lives west. i am divorced. my father is deceased.

so around our Thanksgiving table this year there were only 5 of us. my son, his wife, my mother, my grandson. and me. and then there was our sixth person at the table- my daughter via skype. she lives a world away. her husband was at work. but we caught her before she started work for the day. and she joined us in carving the turkey and saying grace at the table.

and that is how we gathered this year. and it was nice. my mother and i had stuffed and cooked the turkey while my son and his family went to his wife's family gathering. and all went well, even with the turkey taking much longer than expected to reach the 180 degrees of not poisoning us, temperature. and so, a little late, we all sat down at the table.

and as i said, we said our blessings together. very traditional. first we blessed our food. then, my son led us in saying what we were thankful for. he was thankful for his family. ditto my mother. my daughter was thankful for the technology that brought us together. i was thankful for my grandson and for my new son in law. my sweet daughter in law was also thankful for family. my grandson, he was thankful for football. (-: and i was silently thankful that he is so secure in and of the love of his family that he really doesn't even know how thankful he is for what the rest of us were all thankful for. that- being each other.

so i spent the night at my son's house. and hung out today with the grandson while his mother worked and went to see her grandmother in the hospital, and my son went to do a bit of shopping. we goofed off and he showed off his championship rocket math skills. i am amazed at them, having none myself. then during one of the most enjoyable parts of the day, the 8 year old and i went to get our hair cut. we decided that we both looked pretty good, and then i suggested we get some ice cream on the way home. but he really thought he'd rather go to subway and get a pizza sub. and cookies.

and he was so amusedly delighted with his sandwich and his 2 cookies for the price of 1 and he thanked me so profusely that i gave thanks again. for this nice life. with this nice family.

blessings galore.