Be thankful

One of the many lessons I am looking forward to teaching my Balin is to be thankful. Not just for the big stuff like good health but the small things too like a rainbow. Unfortunately for many, thankfulness is reserved for one day a year: Thanksgiving. Nothing wrong with that, but to me it’s such a waste to not be thankful and rejoice in every day because life is just too short.
There’s a great scene from the movie “The Punisher” that always comes to mind as Thanksgiving draws near. The film stars Thomas Jane as Frank Castle, AKA, The Punisher, an FBI agent whose family is slaughtered by assassins employed by Howard Saint, played by John Travolta, in revenge for the inadvertent death of Saint’s son in an undercover gun trafficking sting. Rebecca Romijn (formerly Stamos) plays Joan, a battered woman/recovering alcoholic on the run from her abusive boyfriend.
In the scene I love, Joan makes dinner and invites over three misfit down-on-their-luck neighbors/friends to join her, The Punisher among them. Before they eat, she says she would like to go around the table and ask everyone to name something they are thankful for. What makes this scene so poignant is twofold: Firstly, it is not Thanksgiving but she’s asking her guests to reflect on gratefulness all the same. Secondly, everyone gathered is nursing emotional, and in some cases physical, wounds, blinded by suffering with seemingly not a whole lot to be grateful for or even live for. And yet, in the end, each reveals one thing for which he and she is thankful.
So this Thanksgiving, what are you thankful for?