It's Thanksgiving in the United States. As we wait for the scalloped potatoes to cook and the whole house fills with the smell of melting cheese, I think about my family who live so very far away. It's always during the holidays that I miss everyone most intensely. I have three grown children and nine grandchildren. They live in another country and most of them are two thousand miles away. They're all very dear to me and I think about them every single day but my thoughts stray to them with much more nostalgia when we're immersed in any family event such as Thanksgiving. I would never have chosen to live so far apart. Life has led me here and that same life has given my husband and myself opportunities we would have never had if we hadn't moved. That doesn't make the distance any easier to take. My husband, my children and my grandchildren are the most important people in my life, plain and simple.
But...somehow...the universe was watching over us because it gave us something to compensate in some way for the lack.
We're lucky, very lucky, much more so than a lot of people out there. We live in our own home (well ours and the bank's), we have good food to eat every day, we're healthy and happy. But our luck doesn't end there. We have neighbors who have become friends. These friends have become more than just friends. They have become a part of our family. When you live in a place that was completely unfamiliar six years ago and circumstances made you leave everything and everyone you knew behind, it becomes doubly important to have neighbors that become friends and then become family.
Today we will walk across the street and enjoy a beautiful meal that everyone contributed to. We will have a few drinks and even more laughter. We will be with people who care about us even though they don't have to. We will spend time with people who chose to be our family when they already had one of their own that came from their blood. For that we are immensely thankful.
As I look around the room at these faces that have become so familiar and dear I will think of my children and grandchildren who are so far away and hope that, as they go through their own lives, they will be just as fortunate as us to be surrounded by so much love, even when we aren't by their sides. #Thanksgiving #family #friends #authorlife
