Giving Thanks to Those Who Shaped Us

Middle school girls in renaissance-inspired costumes with their drama club director at a school Shakespeare festival

The night before Thanksgiving, I did a guided meditation on the 10 Percent Happier app called “Gratitude for Benefactors.” The meditation asks the listener to call to mind a person who helped them in some way. The first person I thought of was, surprisingly, a teacher I had in middle school. I haven’t seen her in years, and I had never before thought about how much she encouraged me or the learning opportunities she provided.

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A Different Kind of Thanksgiving

Father and small child walking on a path through the woods on a sunny fall day

Due to the current state of the pandemic in the U.S., we’ve decided to cancel our planned trip to see my mom for Thanksgiving. As I’ve written in past years (here and here), Thanksgiving was always a big day in my family. It’s been many years now since this holiday looked like it did in my youth, but I believe this will be the first year that I won’t spend Thanksgiving with my mom and at least some of my extended family.

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