Thankful

So, today was Thanksgiving, the day we gather to stuff ourselves full of food in recognition of the things for which we are thankful. Lately, I've been talking via email with a bunch of friends from high school. We really enjoy talking about old times, and every once in awhile, someone will produce a picture that will jog someone's memory or start down another pathway of reflection. This morning, I woke up in my old room at my dad's house and stumbled onto some old photo albums from the exact times we've been reminiscing about.

I started flipping through them, and as the memories came rushing back, I was reminded of how much I hated it when my mom (that's her in the top pic from 1993) was always around taking pictures. Now that I've got these photos to look back on, it doesn't seem like such a bad idea to have taken all of them. The older I get, the wiser my parents become. I've scanned in about 150 photos today and am very much looking forward to sharing them with everyone and enjoying the stories that will no doubt come from that.

I had Thanksgiving lunch at my cousin's house. My Grandma, in the second pic, who had a stroke over a year ago and has been in the nursing home since, was there for the meal. My uncle picked her up and brought her out. She sat in her wheelchair and fed herself most of the time. She's still got quite a bit of brain power up there but has trouble getting the words to come out. After the meal and subsequent grazing, I sat with grandma, asked her questions, and tried to make the most I could out of her gestures and sounds. She got tired and said she wanted to go back. I rode along with my uncle and cousin to spend some more time with grandma. We got her to the nursing home and took her inside. My uncle had to go back out to the car to bring in some things he had forgotten. That gave my cousin and me more time to push grandma around; she loves to go for a stroll in the halls and knows everybody. After my uncle got back, we all sat in her room for awhile and just kinda hung out and joked around with grandma. She still likes a good joke even though she can't tell any of her own. I'm thankful she's around and for the time I got to spend with her today.

It was my friends who started this whole trip down memory lane and subsequent introspection. I'm thankful for them, the times we had together, the times we had apart and lessons we learned in those times. Here's a pic I found of us after our last high school band banquet. We turned out to be a pretty decent group.