What readers are thankful for this year
With gratitude, it’s enough
I read somewhere that “gratitude turns what we have into enough.” With that in mind, I look back over 2020, especially Thanksgiving.
My family and a group of dear friends we met in 1979, when we were young and our kids were small, have spent most Thanksgivings together.
There were years we were separated — especially once soccer tournaments took over our lives. People moved away, we lost parents, a child. Still we looked to Thanksgiving to bring us together, with joyful reunions, rituals we cherished and people we loved.
Then COVID barged into our lives, upending our security, interrupting our complacency and leaving our extended Thanksgiving family scattered over seven cities, four states and thousands of miles. We made the best of it, spoke on the phone, Zoomed, sent photos to share and, with gratitude, expressed thanks for our safety and health in the midst of such devastation.
What we had was enough.
This year most of us will be together again. We'll be thankful for the usual food and games, the old and new stories told, the toasts to those we are with and to those we are missing.
And, with gratitude, it will be more than enough.
Carol Godell, Spring
Healthy and with friends
Every morning I try to think of three things that happened the day before that I am grateful for. It is a habit that helps me stay grounded and wards off despair.
This Thanksgiving I am grateful that my children, my wife, and all my close friends are fully vaccinated and boosted. I am deeply grateful for my granddaughter, who really is the sweetest and cutest child on the planet. I am grateful for it being the best season in Houston — fall, a time for long, soul-renewing walks through the neighborhood.
I am grateful for some of the changes the pandemic has wrought — online meetings that allow distant participation, converting streets into outdoor dining, a renewed appreciation for many of life's simple pleasures. But mostly I am grateful to be alive, to be healthy and to be surrounded by good friends.
Alan Jackson, Houston
For the small things
It’s easy to be grateful for the big stuff: family, friends, professional success and, all-too-often, the material trappings that follow. All good things in life, indeed. There was a time Kodak had a monopoly on all those big moments, but that was before everything went digital.
It takes real effort, however, to appreciate the small things. I’ve been working on gratitude for “the moment.” The kind of moment a photograph can’t do justice. The kind of moment impossible to express in a blurb. The kind of moment as unique and fleeting as a mile marker on a long road trip.
Nothing is ever as funny or sad when I tell it later, so I try to appreciate it now. I hope to get better at recognizing moments when they’re in front of me. They might just add up to the biggest moment of all.
Jim Proctor, Livingston
This old house
I am grateful for my 65-year-old house that I grew up and still live in today. Earlier this year, the house and I survived the winter ice storm. After the ice and snow melted and power restored, it is God’s grace that I give thanks.
Bill Pond, Humble
The city of Houston
My wife and I are very thankful for our city, which we both have called home for more than 40 years.
During the pandemic, we have limited our travel and explored Harris County and the surrounding areas. There are so many treasures just a short drive from our home. Houston is blessed with fabulous museums such as the Houston Museum of Natural Science, the Museum of Fine Arts, National Museum of Funeral History, Lone Star Flight Museum and many more.
We’ve explored first rate parks such as the Orange Show’s Smither Park, which contains a fantastic collection of mosaic art works, Evelyn’s Park in Bellaire and the Alice in Wonderland statues, not to mention the redesigned Memorial Park, Hermann Park and Buffalo Bayou Park. We’ve spent many hours at Mercer Arboretum, a county park that many people never stop at. There is also a new Houston Botanic Garden opened near Hobby Airport last year that is working to be a world-class arboretum. I could go on.
Russ Andorka, Houston
For performing arts
I am deeply grateful for Houston’s vibrant performing arts scene, and the ways in which it expands my understanding of the world.
Earlier this month, the Alley Theatre staged “72 Miles to Go,” a beautifully acted, deeply moving drama by Hilary Bettis chronicling the painful fracturing of a family as a result of U.S. immigration policy. As a privileged, middle-aged white guy, it opened my eyes to the terror that mixed-status families sometimes experience, when something as minor as a busted tail light can snowball into a catastrophe.
From Nov. 12-13, Society for the Performing Arts presented the world premiere of “Colored Carnegie” by choreographer Harrison Guy as part of its Houston Artists Commissioning Project. I did not know that at one point Houston discriminated against African-American educators, not allowing them to access the public library in the early 20th century. Nor was I aware that the Black community overcame this racism, building its own library with funds donated by Andrew Carnegie, thus creating a dynamic community center for education and empowerment from 1913 to 1963.
In the Bayou City, we love to congratulate ourselves on the city’s incredible diversity. Yet we don’t always look closely at the painful history and troubling present reality that some of our diverse communities have experienced. These productions opened my eyes to the inspiring perseverance and resilience of multicultural Houston.
Andrew Edmonson, Houston
For the TMC
We are grateful to live near the Texas Medical Center. Having readily available the world’s most advanced medical care is an extraordinary benefit.
Cory Frates, Houston
Working to find gratitude
In this fall of 2021 with the pandemic still haunting us, with economic challenges still ahead, the climate crisis we are facing, people around the world suffering, it is difficult to be thankful. But if we stop and think and reflect, we do have opportunities for thankfulness. I am thankful for a wonderful loving wife and for my open and inclusive church. Houston gives us many ways to be thankful. Houston is a rich, vibrant, multiethnic, welcoming city that has wonderful restaurants, museums, super sports, great neighborhoods. For that I am grateful and thankful. Here in Clear Lake, UHCL has a wonderful continuing education program that helps retired folks and others to stay connected.
While there are reasons to be “down,” this Thanksgiving gives us an opportunity to look around and say thank you, once again, for our country and for the freedom is has given us.
Tim Kavulla, Houston
For kind and loving kids
This year as in every year, I’m most grateful for my family. I’m 81 years old and have lived through many trying times, none of which seemed as bad as now. I have three children, five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, all of whom are kind, gentle, loving good citizens and with great positive personalities.
I’m grateful to think that my wife of almost 62 years and I have contributed to the good in this country by way of our family. With more people like them, peace on earth and goodwill toward men would have real meaning. There is way too much unrest on earth and ill will toward men. We all need to stop being against other people, ideas and things and start seeing the good in everything. That would be a real Thanksgiving.
Len Kaplan, Houston
For family of friends
Thanksgiving causes me to reflect on the gratitude I have for my family of friends. After my husband died in 2018, they rallied around me, making sure I felt their love and recognized that life was still worth living. One friend, also a widow, helped me channel my grief into a scholarship fund that honors the memories of both our husbands. What a beautiful thing it is that the investment we make in our friends pays off ten-fold. For that, I am truly grateful today and every day.
Katherine Butler, Houston
Daughter and friends
Gratitude after a rough year, let’s see: Facts and highlights: longtime-widowed senior citizen on a fixed income with a failing 19-year-old vehicle, aging condo with rusting old air conditioner, and then a bad fall and shoulder surgery. Just a few close friends in my condo complex, busy with their own lives. One child, my wonderful and loving daughter, and her sweet guy of many years, both very busy with their own careers.
Daughter swings in to help save the year: finds an affordable A/C company and then helps pay for the new unit. The next month, when the vehicle problem escalates, she devotes time and effort helping me find an affordable, newer replacement and helps with a down payment. Then in September, she becomes a part-time caretaker to me until I can once again live by myself after my shoulder heals, and my few close friends take up the rest.
I should mention, daughter and I live on opposite ends of this vast city, with many hours of driving in between. I am very blessed to have her and the friends in my life, and owe them everything. Love and thanks to all.
Rusti Stover, Houston
God bless America
During this time of Thanksgiving, I am most grateful to live in America.
We have freedom of speech, free elections, freedom to practice the religion of our choice, freedom to go to the school of our choice, just to name a few. We should all be thankful to be living in the greatest country on earth. With that I wish all a very happy and glorious Thanksgiving. God bless America, land of the free.
Brian Binash, Houston
Chance to play a part
I am thankful to play a part in the great drama of our age, the leap to a just, sustainable world.
Nan Hildreth, Houston
Science, nature and math
This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for science, nature and mathematics.
The science that meant I lost no one in the pandemic from the youngest to the oldest because the CDC told us how to stay safe. And it worked.
The research and techniques that paved the way for the world's fastest vaccine development. And it worked.
The technology that allowed us to stay together virtually if not in person. And it worked.
Zoom for spawning a new art form, virtual performances of orchestras and choirs knitted together in the privacy of a thousand homes. And it worked.
The mathematics that told us in advance that on Nov. 19, the longest lunar eclipse in 580 years could be seen and then told us exactly when to watch. And it worked.
The wondrous world we live in. And it works … so far.
Deborah Moran, Houston