Thank You

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  First and foremost because it is America's holiday and I am grateful to have been born an American.  I am thankful for my grandparents who had the courage to cross the pond into the strange and unforgiving urban wilderness that is New York City.  Thanksgiving is my Yom Kippur and Easter.  An ecumenical day of celebration when atheists and the pious have equal reverence for their creation.  The right to believe as one chooses is one of the greatest gifts bestowed upon us by our Founders.   And for that I am forever grateful. 

I am also thankful for just being conceived.  The first and practically only time I ever won a race was when the sperm that would become me beat out all his peers and crossed the vitelline membrane first.  It would be another 41 years before I repeated the feat in a 10k race, but that was strictly an age group win.  So I am thankful for the gift of life and the 85 or so years that have been granted to me.  To experience love and rejection.  To feel ecstasy and pain.  To witness the birth of a new life and the death of an old one.  To hear the birds sing and babies cry.  And to see the grace of nature's creation and the power of her destruction.

I am grateful for the path that my parents set me on.  I might complain about all the rocks in my way or that I am freezing or sweating but I know there are many, many more behind me who have lost their way or don't know where they are going.  Or if they will ever even get there.  And I am most thankful that along this path I met my walking partner, Tammy.  Because with her by my side I am already there.