Recognizing When Everything Is – and Isn’t – Okay

I am a fortunate woman and I know it.

I live in a community I love, work with talented people who put in as much effort as I do to make a dream we all believe in – the CV Weekly – come true every week, and have a family that supports me. And those are just some of the many, many blessings that I am thankful for today. But the Goldsworthy Thanksgiving table, while shrouded in love, will have some absences.

This is the first Thanksgiving without my mother-in-law’s husband. Frank died just after Easter earlier this year and his seat will be empty.

Our son Andy has moved to North Carolina to start an exciting career as a chef. He’s the new kid on the block at his job so he won’t be home until after Thanksgiving and Christmas.

And like so many other families, we are grappling with relationship changes that will cast a pall over the day.

At church on Sunday, it was as if our pastor knew what I was going through. He said that most everyone (especially in these times) has something that is troubling them and that not everything is “okay.” And, he added, that’s okay. Because Thanksgiving – and Christmas and birthdays and rain and blue skies – are going to happen regardless whether or not everything is okay.

While he touched on the spiritual lessons relating to this truth, I distilled the message down to this: Whatever “it” is, we have to live through it, learn from it and grow beyond it … and help each other along the way.

Last week I touched on the fact that Thanksgiving is a kick off of the season of giving. The collection barrel outside our office was half filled with donated food by the time the Community Center of La Cañada Flintridge picked it up. This morning, hundreds were due to turn out for the 19th annual Thanksgiving Day Run and food drive, the majority of runners with a food item to donate.

So while everything may not be okay, I am thankful that enough is so that I can join hands with those I love at my holiday table and offer a prayer of thanksgiving for all that I have been given.

I wish you a wonderful Thanksgiving and hope to see you tomorrow evening at White Friday on Honolulu Avenue to shop, dine and watch the kids play in the snow, then witness Montrose come alive with the tree and town lighting at 7 p.m.

Just another reason to be thankful.

  robin goldsworthy