Thanksgiving is the day to give thanks. It’s something that we have been trained for all our lives: cook a large meal, eat it with your entire extended family and talk about what you’re thankful for. (Ignore the new norm of the Black Friday shopping on Thursday.) Normally, my giving thanks is easy. I’m a very thankful, grateful person for my life. This year, however, was different.
We were supposed to host and it was going to be wonderful. It was my first Thanksgiving after moving away to university, and I was super excited to be with all my family again. Then, a few days before Thanksgiving, my brother died. Before my brother actually died and he was still in a coma, we had already cancelled dinner. This was expected, but it still sucked. Thanksgiving—and the holiday season in general—is a time where family comes together and celebrates; how could we be thankful at a time like this? My parents’ oldest son died, my siblings and I lost a brother, and I lost my best friend and the most important person in my life.
It sounds weird, but it was still decently easy to be thankful this year. My manager at Harris Teeter gave us over $50 of food so that my mother wouldn’t have to cook; we were still able to eat dinner. That was one thing I was thankful for. I was thankful for all the sweet texts, messages, phone calls, etc. that dozens of people were sending me. I was thankful for the nurses at the hospital that took such amazing care of my brother, myself, and my family. I was thankful for my advisor and professor at UNCW who made sure my registration went as well as it could from over two hours away (and all of my professors and TAs). I was thankful for the 1,400+ people who shared the fundraiser page for my brother in order to share about mental health. I was thankful for my brother’s friends who I got to talk to and hang out with. I was thankful to be able to hear new stories about my brother.
I could continue, but essentially, even though something terrible happened, I was still able to find things to be thankful for. The moral of the story is that you should always be able to find the silver lining in every bad situation.