Column | Holidays with bittersweet memories, but a common thread: gratitude

“Please sing the grateful song – the one about the weak made strong!” The young man with Down’s syndrome enthusiastically reiterated before – and sometimes during – worship time at church.

“Give Thanks” by Christian artist Don Moen was first published in 1986, the year my husband and I got married. It quickly became popular in evangelical churches and in our own repertoire of songs of praise for ministry in the Catholic Church.

The repetitive song is just deep, just like our friend with Down’s Syndrome who asked us to sing it over and over again. As I sang into the microphone, I watched the young man sing and marveled at his pure gratitude to God and his zeal for life.

The song has only two paragraphs repeated over and over:

Give thanks with a grateful heart
Thank the saint
Give thanks because he gave Jesus Christ his Son

And now let the weak say, “I am strong”
Let the poor say: “I am rich”
Because of what the Lord has done for us ”

I still remember, almost 30 years later, how this young man closed his eyes, raised his hands to the sky, and sang those words out loud. He had that sweet smile on his face and his body swayed to the beat of the song that seemed to touch the depths of his soul.

I did not know him outside of religious events. I imagine her family life was filled with regular commitments and fulfilled the ongoing need for support for a young adult with Down syndrome.

He inspired me with his smile and his song.

At the time, we were a young family of five in full-time ministry in the Catholic Church. Our lives revolved around our family life and our community of faith.

I thought I understood the meaning of gratitude and the juxtaposition of being strong when you’re weak and rich when you’re poor – at least from the point of view of Christianity, which is filled with such contradictory statements.

For example, God being born in a humble stable and dying on a cross – both of these scenarios denote weakness, poverty and loss when one takes a quick glance at the situation.

But when we look beyond the surface to the mystery within, we can discover gratitude in pain, strength in weakness, and a rich eternal life that no economic poverty can reduce.

I have fond memories of Thanksgiving growing up in a large Connecticut family. My two sisters and I were the three youngest of eight children. Although there was a 20 year stretch from eldest to youngest, we still got together for the holidays.

I was grateful to grow up surrounded by my family and friends, especially during the holidays.

When my husband and I started our life together, our family vacations were limited because of the distance between us. His family was in the Midwest and mine was split between Connecticut and Florida. Long journeys by car and plane have become increasingly expensive and difficult as our family has grown.

I don’t remember our first Thanksgiving as a newly married couple, but I do remember the second because my son was a newborn. My parents came to our house that year, making the trip to Long Island that they rarely made, so they could meet their grandson and heal their broken hearts.

My parents mourned the death of their daughter while they held my son. They were grateful and broken on this bittersweet Thanksgiving.

One of my older sisters was run over by a drunk driver and died just three days after my son was born. I could not attend the vigil and the funeral because I had a hemorrhage and I almost died during the delivery of my son.

Just hours after I brought my son home from the hospital, my husband told me the news of my sister’s death. Tears rolled down my face over my newborn son in my arms as I heard the Lord whisper to my heart, “I gave you David to remind you that I bring new life in the midst of death.” .

And so began our Bittersweet Thanksgiving trip. There were more than a few gracious feasts punctuated by difficult circumstances and losses.

Six years and two children later, our third baby was born on Thanksgiving Day. Labor started just in time for dessert, so I passed on the sweet treats and focused my attention on delivering our baby girl. She came fast and furious, weighing almost 10 pounds and was almost born in the back of the station wagon that my husband rushed to the hospital amid my screams.

MaryAngela was born just 10 minutes later. The midwife did not even have time for the scrubs as she barely arrived in time to attend the delivery.

We named it after our adopted Italian grandmother, Angela Mary, and our Irish mothers whose middle name was Mary.

We were having Thanksgiving at Angela’s when I gave birth. She adopted our little family over the years and gave us a home away from home and a life of friendship that spans generations, even today.

Angela came to visit me in the hospital and was deeply touched by her namesake. We planned our Thanksgiving a week later with dessert. Angela held her namesake baby and then started complaining of chest pain. She left our second Thanksgiving and went to the emergency room where she was diagnosed with an aortic aneurysm.

Angela passed away just before Christmas. I held my newborn daughter in my arms at Angela’s funeral remembering the message I had heard before. God gives us new life in the midst of death.

My youngest daughter, Johanna, had her first Thanksgiving with a head full of staples from the first two brain surgeries when she was three months old. The swelling fluid at the base of her incision indicated that she would need a shunt – her third brain surgery in three weeks.

We were exhausted and scared this Thanksgiving, surrounded by caring family and friends who lovingly served us food. When I think back to the photos from that time, I see a distant look in my eyes as my emotions fluctuated between fear of the future and gratitude that our little girl was alive. We hoped the trials were behind us and the best was yet to come.

There would be a lot more Thanksgiving with Johanna – many of them were spent in pediatric intensive care units. Dinner was usually provided by volunteers, often by families who had themselves spent many vacations in the hospital.

One year, another family gave us a children’s book on Thanksgiving, stored in a joy basket. The children all crammed onto Johanna’s hospital bed when we opened the basket.

The book was titled: “Thanksgiving at the Tappletons” by Eileen Spinelli. It’s a really great story about the perfect Thanksgiving gone bad because one by one every part of the dinner is ruined. In the end, the family settles around the table eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, just grateful to be together.

We read this book every Thanksgiving, especially enjoying the feelings when our less than perfect vacations have been redesigned due to illness and hospitalizations.

When COVID hit, my husband and I planned our simple dinner with Jo at home. My son and his wife joined us for a little while and at a distance outside on the back deck. It was another creative Thanksgiving and we knew how to enjoy each other even without the holiday flair.

In the past 35 years since becoming a wife and mother, I don’t remember much of a “normal vacation”. I only remember the faces of my children and being thankful for another year together.

Our family Thanksgiving has always had a bittersweet flavor with poignant lessons to remind us that gratitude does not come from auspicious circumstances, but from a disposition of the heart.

Little did I realize that when I met this young man with Down’s syndrome at church, his simple request for a song and the enthusiasm with which he sang “Give Thanks” would nourish my soul with a lesson in gratitude that lasted a lifetime.

Thanksgiving is more than a day to celebrate. It is an attitude of gratitude that opens our lives to see possibilities no matter what and to embrace miracles every day.