can't ... eat ... another ... bite ...

ok, maybe just ONE more helping of stuffing.

had a great thanksgiving at aunt judy's house in CT. she prepared an AMAZING feast for 21 people on thursday (kudos kudos!) it was delicious, complete with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy (that was ME and suzen!), cranberry sauce, candied sweet potatoes, apple pie, pumpkin pie and pecan pie. lots of love went into that meal. it always seems a shame to eat it so quickly after so much time was spent preparing. though i suppose we've been eating it ever since ... and the turkey soup will last at least a few more days!

jimmy's brother and his family were in town from chicago. i hope she won't mind that i relay my perspective here, but his brother has ALS, otherwise known as Lou Gehrig's disease., a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. i didn't know anything about it when i arrived, though i'd heard the name, and certainly never met anyone who had it. tom sat on a recliner in the living room, hardly able to move much. if i'm honest, i found it a little hard at first. i didn't know what to do, how to act, what to say, how to respond, what he needed, what he could understand or couldn't. i imagine this paralysis in others is probably just as frustrating for him as his own paralysis. but i sat to talk with him a little later in the night and he had me laughing about old stories of his wife and his younger, crazier years. he has four beautiful children and an amazing wife who equally as witty with boundless energy. where she finds it, i don't know. i suppose when life throws you a pitch you just step up to the plate and give it a really good whack.

i found myself oscillating between being angry at whomever-i-should-be-angry-at for such a thing happening to such an amazing family, and being in awe of their resiliance and spirit in the face of something so unfair. it reminds me of this quote hanging on the door of the little girl's room i slept in while i was here: 'when life throws you lemons, you want to throw them back and scream 'i asked for limes!!'' ... i'm SURE they did not ask for lemons but it hardly seems like that's what they've got. you'd never know it from the way they live and love. it was very powerful and i am grateful to have shared thanksgiving with them this year.

it reminded me, i suppose, that lows will come, that lows are inevitable in life, i know there have certainly been a fair share of lows this year and i know there will be more to come. so i gave thanks for the highs that come, also thankfully inevitably, that make the lows bearable. may 2008 bring far more highs than lows!