A Thanksgiving Reflection

Thanksgiving is tomorrow! At the moment I'm very thankful I'm feeling well enough to cook tomorrow as I've had a rough go of it this week. But I'm on the upswing and the pumpkin pie is baked and tomorrow promises a morning filled with a busy kitchen and some great food! 

As I was rolling out pie crust tonight I got to thinking about thankfulness. Some people choose to pick something to be thankful for each day of November, others will perhaps take turns going around the table tomorrow and sharing their thankfulness while enjoying turkey. 

All great choices, but sometimes I wonder how deeply we reflect on the powerful moments that shape what we are thankful for. 

One of the most common responses is being thankful for ones family (which of course is a wonderful response). Let's face it, we'd kinda be assholes if we didn't say we were thankful for our family, our children, our significant other. But it want to take it deeper than that. 

This summer I had the most powerful experience of my life. The experience that showed me just how deep the bonds of siblings run. The experience that defines thankfulness for this family of mine.

We welcomed our 3rd beautiful baby boy last January. 

In May we found out that he was born with a condition called craniosynostosis and would need major skull surgery in July. We were beside ourselves with anxiety over it. I can't even remember much about the weeks leading up to surgery, I didn't sleep much and was pretty much a mess. 

Surgery was hard. Because of a hereditary bleeding disorder (sorry boys, you got that from mama) he had to stay sedated for 24 hours post op. That was the hardest. Not being able to hold your baby for 24 hours,while you watch them moan through the pain despite morphine and being sedated....well it makes your heart break a little. 

When he finally was able to come out of sedation the swelling really kicked in. I could now pick him up but his head was so swollen it felt like 3 times the size. His big beautiful eyes swelled shut, all but a little sliver shone through on his left eye. He moaned but was otherwise unresponsive to us, and then the most amazingly powerful thing I've ever witnessed happened. His big brothers arrived. As soon as he heard their voices and felt their hands holding his, my sweet little baby started to babble to them. He even smiled a little. Those wonderful big brothers, even though they were a bit dismayed by the incision across their baby brothers head, and his face which now resembled a sumo wrestler (even his poor little ears swelled) they just kept rubbing his hands and talking to him. And that's when I knew just how amazing the bond my children have with each other is.

It's that moment I thought about while mixing up the pumpkin pie. I'll never forget it, not in all my days. The love of siblings, the love of a family. 

So this Thanksgiving, as you're passing around the cranberry sauce and the gravy, take a moment to really think about the powerful experiences that have shaped your thankfulness. 

And do share them here :)