5 Minutes of Gratitude

By definition, the day after Thanksgiving will always be a 5-Minute Friday, so long as The Gypsy Mama keeps hosting this meme.  Thus, through the long Thanksgiving weekend--for which we are all CERTAINLY grateful!--we are reminded to continue counting our blessings, and that is a good thing.
At 12:55 in the afternoon, I begin.

I have a lot to be grateful for, and don't think I don't know it.  This list could be very long.  But I'm not going to write that list, because one thing stands out so firmly in my mind that I was grateful for yesterday.

To many, this will seem a bizarre thing for which to be so grateful: I turned off my cell phone on a major holiday.  Telephones and I have been uneasy allies since the moment I answered one at about 4 AM during my junior year of high school and heard on the other end of the line my brother's voice announcing that my father had been taken to the hospital with a massive heart attack .  From that time on, the ringing of a telephone always caused me to stiffen a bit, to jump into action, to wonder if the time to pick out a suitable black dress had finally come.

I adored my parents.  I thought losing them was the worst thing that could ever happen in my world.  I realized yesterday that waiting to lose them, and the suffering that they endured while they waited for Christ to gather them home to Himself, was in many ways worse than the natural process of grief could ever be.  Last year at this time, I was still recovering from having finally gotten the call about Dad a few years before, and waiting for the call to come about Mom, who was in a hospital she would never leave.  This year, I turned my cell phone off, knowing that none of us were waiting anymore, and enjoyed a lovely dinner with my husband, my daughter, and my wonderful in-laws, my new family, all of whom are in robust good health for their age, I am happy to say.  I am grateful.