Thanksgiving 2015

Annabelle’s class collected canned goods and food items to put together a Thanksgiving basket for a needy family.

She was assigned green beans and used the change she’d gotten from her Aunt Betty Ann’s change jar on Halloween to pay for them herself. She was precious counting out her coins at the grocery store.

Thanksgiving is always a hard time of year for us. It never fails, when the calendar rolls over to November, my heart just aches more than normal for our Cooper. I always dread the anniversary of the day our lives were turned upside down and forever changed. The whole month is just difficult. I’m sure it will always be that way. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about him and miss him and wonder what he’d be like now. Our busy lives keep us going and distracted most days, making it easier to keep the brokenness tucked away nicely. There’s just something about November, though, that brings it all back. It’s hard to believe it’s been 8 years now. So much has changed and so much life has been lived and with every year that goes by, it feels like we’re that much farther away from him. Of course, there’s always the fear of people forgetting him, too. To me, November just stinks. But, God is good and He gives us exactly what we need to face each day- even the darkest of them. I’d been having one of my “bad November days” and I was in the car later that afternoon. I looked up as a semi-truck passed by to see my boy’s name in big letters across the back. It was so sweet to have been missing him extra hard that day and then to see his name on some random truck. God is so good to know our hearts and know what would touch them and then give us little things like that.

This was the first year, since Cooper’s accident that we did a big Thanksgiving. For the past 7 years, we’ve always just done lunch with my parents, usually out of town somewhere. They made sure we were okay before they went to my brother’s for the week this year. We assured them, we were fine and we thought about going, too, but decided we’d lay low again and just be home. As the week went on, DW said he really thought we should go down to the creek with the rest of his family for their traditional Thanksgiving lunch, which is what we had always done in the past before Cooper’s accident. I think it was probably the third stranger who said something to our kids about Thanksgiving and the fact that they didn’t really know much about it that lead to his decision. One lady asked the kids if they were looking forward to Thanksgiving that week and what their favorite Thanksgiving food was and they just kind of stared blankly at her.

I agreed with DW and we packed up our indians and spent the day at the creek. It was beautiful weather and it was nice to be outside and enjoy a big traditional Thanksgiving meal with some of the extended family.

The kids loved running around and sitting by the water, and only one of them fell in. I’m sure anyone who really knows us, knows which one it was. :)

We are so thankful for all of our many blessings.

~amw~