A week from today our family will be gathered together at our house to celebrate Thanksgiving. In chaotic times such as these there are two ways the gathering can go: either we’ll all use the occasion to whine and vent our frustrations or we’ll compartmentalize them out and reflect on the half-full cup. I’m hoping the latter will prevail.
Today’s Wall Street Journal had an article that I’ve clipped and will share with our family this year, and every year going forward. It’s entitled “When the Next Generation Has to Step Up on Thanksgiving”. It focuses on the baton-handoff that must occur as the family patriarch and matriarch age and are unable to host and manage the mayhem that always attends the holiday. But it also offers wisdom for every Thanksgiving. If followed, the chances of having the half-full cup scenario has a good chance of materializing. I highly recommend the article.
As for giving thanks and gratitude. Today I’m going to share a personal anecdote describing a seminal moment in my upbringing. It informs what Thanksgiving means to me.
THE CAIRO INCIDENT
In 1967 (I was 15) my Mom and Dad and I took a trip to Greece and the Middle East. It was on our stop in Cairo that I had an experience that was one of those “I’ll never forget” moments that shapes a life.
We were walking out of the Nile Hilton hotel where we were staying. As we exited the doors onto the sidewalk a group of kids, 5 or 6 as I recall, came up to us begging for food or money. Ragtag, dirty, with pleading eyes, the group included a couple of teenagers.
This was the first time in my life I had ever been solicited by someone my own age. I had seen plenty of panhandlers before in Paris, in New York and elsewhere, and groups of little kids swarming around tourists, but never before had I experienced direct eye contact with kids my own size and age.
I expected my father, a veteran traveler and tourist who had been subjected to similar circumstances countless times during his worldwide travels, to simply keep walking. Instead, he turned back to the doorman of the hotel, handed him some money and asked him to personally ensure that these kids were fed a proper meal. The doorman, shocked and hesitant, reluctantly promised he would. As my dad turned to the group he pointed to the doorman, who explained to them what he was going to do. One of the teenage boys then turned not to my father, but to me, clasped his hands in prayer-like fashion, nodded his head and uttered in Arabic “Shukran” or “Thank You”, then put his arm around his little brother, who did the same. Later when we returned the doorman recounted how he had sent to the hotel kitchen for “guest lunchboxes” and distributed them to the children.
Irrespective of whether or not these kids were putting on an act, I was so taken aback and moved by the incredibly sharp contrast between my life and theirs that I vowed never again to complain about the food on my plate or the comforts I enjoy.
And so to this day, and for the rest of my life, I will be grateful for the privilege and opportunity of living in freedom in this greatest of all countries and for the incredible wealth we have: to include the feast of food, family and friends at Thanksgiving.
