- May 3, 2024
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My kids were in bed after a great Thanksgiving with friends in Palm Coast. The house was quietly humming. I had some Bach playing on my computer. All the ingredients for world peace, it seemed, were in my lap, and yet I felt like curling into the fetal position in bed, because of one other post-Thanksgiving phenomenon: My wife and her friend were out Christmas shopping for the kids already.
They spent the afternoon searching for Black Friday bargains. Comparing prices. Making lists. Whispering so the kids wouldn’t hear. When I presented my point of view — So what’s our spending limit, here? It might be inexpensive, but do we really need it? Can we really afford it? — my head was patted, and I was given less-than-subtle hints that I should focus my attention on the football game on TV.
As I sat on the couch later, I got a text: “We just left Walmart.”
I thought: It’s going to be a long, lonely night compounded by money stress. Provide, provide!
From the Georgia line
Of course, if you watch the news, it doesn’t take long to break up the pity party. In the past few days, I saw a video of a young boy holding the hand of a crying toddler, leading her up a few stairs that were covered with concrete debris in Gaza. I saw an image of an elderly woman in tears, followed by a clip of a house that had been mangled weeks ago by Sandy.
The other day, I was driving down U.S. 1 when I spotted a young man, maybe 25 years old, carrying a backpack in the mist. I was alone in the car, so I pulled over and offered him a ride. He hopped in, and we rode in silence for a few minutes.
“I can’t go far — I’m just heading to Bunnell,” I said. “Where are you headed?”
“Melbourne,” he said. He had straw-colored hair, and his left eye was partly closed; it looked like it might have been a glass eye. He wore jeans and a blue sweatshirt.
“That’s a long walk,” I said. “Where did you start?”
“Georgia line.” He said I was the fifth person who had given him a ride.
I didn’t have any real food in the car, but I gave him what I had: a pack of Smarties. He thanked me and gobbled them up.
Being the curious person I am, I was dying to know what had left him in this predicament. Was he wanted for robbery? Was he meeting up with a young lady to ask her to elope with him? Was he going to a professional baseball tryout?
Chances are, I thought, this trip from Georgia to Melbourne is being made out of necessity. If walking for days is his best option, the other options can’t be good.
I never asked his name. I give him a little cash and dropped him off downtown, this wanderer, this down-on-his-luck son of someone.
Beginning of wisdom
In light of all that, I have to admit, I live a charmed life. Nov. 23 marked 10 happy years of marriage, so I have to thank my wife first. I am thankful for good friends at church, at work, in the community. I am thankful that my children are happy and healthy. I am thankful for simple miracles: an icemaker in my freezer, a shelf full of books, technology that allows me to communicate with my far-flung siblings at any time.
Giving thanks — at all times of the year — is an edifying act. It’s a recognition that others have helped us along the way, and, therefore, it’s a reminder that we are loved.
Giving thanks equips us to help someone else.
A former president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Gordon B. Hinckley, once wrote: “Gratitude is the beginning of wisdom.”
And anyone who knows anything about wisdom knows that it begins with saying, “I’ll be right there,” when your wife calls late at night to ask if you can help bring in the spoils from Black Friday shopping.
— Email Brian McMillan at [email protected].
