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Thanksgiving
This is an open post to discuss all the things for which we’re thankful, big and small.
I may have more reason to be thankful today than most: First, I’m thankful to an anonymous pig who (reluctantly, I imagine) donated its aortic valve to my father, replacing his dangerously calcified human one. (Thank you, gentle pig! We hope you liked your experience of xenoplantation, and welcome you to your new human lifestyle! You’ll love settling in to watch The Simpsons with my dad: We absolutely loved that when we were growing up.)
Without a replacement, my father wasn’t apt to survive for long. But the pig valve is now happily doing its valvular job in my Pop’s heart, along with his two newly bypassed arteries and his new pacemaker. 
He’s tired, but he’s home and comfortable in his own apartment. We’re about as thankful as a family can be — to the doctors, the surgeons, the surgical team, the nurses, the hospital staff, the tradition of modern medical research that made this possible, the luck of the defect having been detected and cured in time, and above all to He who Decided that we’d be allowed to have our father around a little while longer.
What about you? Anything making you feel especially thankful today?
CORRECTION: Because this author is not truly qualified to pronounce on any matter related to cardiology, she seems to have misunderstood both what she was told about this medical procedure and, perhaps, a key word in French. Her father’s new aortic valve has not been replaced by that of a pig. It has been replaced by … something made out of veal. The author learned this over Thanksgiving dinner. She’s still a little unclear about what happened to her Pop’s heart, but ever-so-grateful that it’s working, no matter what kind of animal they put in it.
Ricochet regrets the error.
Published in General
Happy Thanksgiving, Claire.
I am grateful for my family and my good friends on Ricochet.
Claire, I’m thankful for all the technology that makes for such a convenient modern life. My wife and I flew at hundreds of miles an hour while being tens of thousands of feet above the earth to leave the cold climate and embrace south Florida. The kids and grand kids entered large metal boxes with wheels and sped faster than any animal has ever traveled on its own power to meet up with us, all the while the moms and dads drinking coffees from tropical climates far to the south — and east and west.
Here at the beach house we don’t give a second thought about whether the water that gushes from the tap is clean, whether we can overcome the darkness with light just by using the thumb and index finger to flip the switch. When we have forgotten something for the Thanksgiving dinner today, we travel on smooth roads to stores that stay open for us thoughtless types. (I know the store is open from 08:00 AM to 02:00 PM because I can see from its web site the exact hours.) And if Dummy-Me starts a fire while cooking the turkey, he can summon the fire trucks with his ‘smart’ phone to take care of the danger.
Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.
I’m thankful for lots of things, but at the top of the list, is this:
My granddaughter is seven years old. Each year, before school starts, she and her mother, and a couple of her friends, open a lemonade stand for a day, in their little town, in their yard, by the gate. People, including police and county workers, whose offices are just down the road, buy her lemonade. No-one talks about health and safety rules. No-one shuts her down. Her mother explains about the cost of the lemons and the sugar, subtracts it from her ‘profit,’ and she learns a little about how the world works.
This year, she had five whole dollars left after expenses. She announced to her mother that she would like to donate it to her grade school. Her mother put the five dollars in an envelope, wrote a note on it, and told her to take it to the Principal’s office and explain herself. She did.
The next day, the Principal showed up in her class, sat down with her, thanked her for her generosity, and asked her what she thought should be done with the money. (Five dollars is a lot of money, when you’re seven, you’re my granddaughter, and you worked for it all yourself).
She said she would like him to give some of it to each of the teachers so that they could do something nice for the kids.
I am thankful that my granddaughter lives in a family, a town, and a country, where her experiences, and her grounding, are such that when she starts to make decisions for herself, she makes decisions like this. And I am thankful for the adults who take her seriously and support her.
She is an excellent little person. She is hope. And I am thankful for that.
I’m thankful to be back home with my entire family for the holidays.
I survived a potentially deadly accident 2 weeks ago. I walked away with bruises and swelling. Should be dead or paralyzed. So I am thankful for being able to watch the sunrise this morning and being able to walk my dog. Looking forward to my family coming over this afternoon.
Being alive and active when I would in all likelihood be dead were it not for the surgeons and oncologists at King’s College Hospital and Guy’s Hospital in London.
I’m thankful for that, too.
Glad you’re well, Gaby. See you soon in Paris.
I’m thankful to be living in a very small island of liberty in relation to time and space, very few humans have so far been blessed. I’m also thankful for all those who recognize the threats to our liberties and are willing to work against them, especially those in our militaries who risk life and limb to preserve liberty for us and attempt to help others attain it.
Mrs. OS and I went for our customary walk early this morning in time to see the sunrise in Kentucky. It was gorgeous this morning. It usually is. I’m very thankful that we have our health and can enjoy these little pleasures in peace and saftey.
We will have our Thanksgiving meal this afternoon along with a son who was able to come here this year. Our other ‘kids’ are unable to get away but all are healthy, safe and doing well so I’m thankful for that as well.
My list is too long to go on further, I am very blessed, have a wonderful Thanksgiving, Ricocheteers!
Yesterday, at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, 8-year-old Kyree Beachem underwent a triple organ transplant after waiting 5 years for a match.
This morning, approximately 4 miles from Children’s Hospital, my 8-year-old daughter is running in the annual YMCA Turkey Trot.
Thankful.
So very much, thank the Lord.
I am, indeed, thankful that America takes a day to be thankful. It is such a beautiful and important sentiment, a foundation of any good society.
For the accident of birth that made so much possible for me. For the luck that brought me to Sydney.
Claire,
I’m happy to hear your father is at home and healing, that’s great news.
My family has had more than its share of medical drama this year and so I too am thankful for the wonders of modern medicine, that we live at a time when things that would have killed us not long ago are now treatable. And most of all I am thankful to everyone who selflessly donates blood.
Happy (American) Thanksgiving!
This post and these comments remind me how much I truly am thankful for Ricochet. Where else could I have met and gotten to know such a varied and wonderful group of people? I can’t think of a place…
Happy Thanksgiving all, my wish is that everyone has a safe and happy day devoid of politics and full of family.
When I saw the pictures on the post, I thought it was a story about what Thanksgiving dinner does to the body ! I saw that headline somewhere – talk about a party pooper!
Claire, happy your dad is home recovering – what a story! and to all of you that have had hurts and challenges and are on the mend – A toast to life, liberty, family, friends, modern medicine and Ricochet – Happy Thanksgiving!
I am thankful for the radiation and chemo therapy treatments I received this fall that made me suffer no significant side effects and greatly shrunk the tumor in my rectum such that it will much more easily be extracted from my body come Monday. I’m especially thankful for the caring and concern shown by my entire oncological team at Duke–it doesn’t take a village, but it does take a highly motivated and collegial team to deal effectively with cancer. I’m also very thankful for the positive long-term prognosis. Most of all, though, I am thankful for the loving expressions of support and concern that have come to me from near and far, by childhood as well as contemporary friends (some on Ricochet!), since I found out about all this in July. And I’m so very thankful that it’s beautiful outside and that there is a very good likelihood that I will be able to contribute to this life as well as enjoy my favorite time of year for years to come.
Terrific that your father is doing so well and has a great prognosis. Maybe you will be even luckier and more thankful than I after a similar event in my life: on his 89th birthday, my father had a pig’s aortic valve replace the one that had disqualified him from the WWII draft. And he continued with another 8 vigorous years of independent living, without a day in a hospital or nursing home.
Today, and nearly every day, I revel in and am thankful for all the nearly infinite coincidences after the formation of the earth that led up to my being born. When you stop to think about it, each of us has a parallel, lucky history.
And I also give thanks to all those who forged this country and its founding ethos so that I could live the life I have.
Looking over the landscape today, however, I can only hope that we have among us those who will cobble together a counter-counter revolution against the Progressives’s tear-down of Benjamin Franklin’s Republic and show we “can keep it.”
I happy for the good fortune that so many have here in the commentariat for the benefits of science and medicine, and the joy that dispersed families realize through the wonders of modern engineering permitting them to travel rapidly across the miles. We truly enjoy an amazing age. But it is fragile and requires our commitment to defend it against stone-aged thinking. I am thankful that Ricochet exists to aid in this battle to retain modernity.
Claire,
Best wishes to you and your father. I am also thankful for the aortic valve replacement (mine is bovine) I had 8 years ago this month. All is well.
Today, wife and I will spend our one day a year in Park City to enjoy the day with daughter, her husband, and 4 of our grandchildren, including a granddaughter not too long back from 18 months in the Philippines and another recently back from Uruguay. We are thankful for the blessings of family.
Missing but thankful for the well-being of daughter, her husband and 3 grandchildren in Phoenix, Az and our son who is in Virginia.
Thankful for Ricochet family, too.
I’m thankful the OP used illustrations rather than photographs.
Great post. God bless your father and that poor pig. May there be a pig heaven.
I’m thankful for all the blessings God has given me. Way too many to enumerate, but let’s highlight my six year old little boy who I love beyond compare, even though he’s bugging me right now while I try to type away on this computer and while he hen pecks “Mary Had a Little Lamb” on his keyboard. :)
Um. Even mentioning “family” is violence.
Check your privilege.
Me, I always make Thanksgiving all about politics: Torah, Jews’ contribution to America, the wonderful triumph and blessing of liberty. To some of my audience, each is more offensive than the last.
I am thankful for being born to such wonderful parents God bless their souls.
Dear Claire,
I am so happy your dad is OK and home. I have purchased a copy of his “A Tour of the Calculus” in his honor and my enjoyment. Enjoy a little Thanksgiving together.
How do you say “help I can’t eat anymore” in French.
Warm Regards,
Jim
Happy Thanksgiving!
I am thankful for all of you and this place we share. I am thankful for my family and friends (real and imaginary).
After watching Jurassic World yesterday, I’m thankful to have been placed in a time and place that puts me at the top of the food chain.
I’m thankful for the humor to laugh at what I cannot change, and for so many Ricochetti who share that gift. Bad jokes for bad events. Good jokes for… Well, we don’t get many good jokes around here, do we? ;)
I’m thankful for functional eyes and ears to witness the majesty of God’s Creation. May He soften our hearts so that we are moved by the beauty surrounding us every day of our lives and trust that these lights, though sometimes hidden, can never be extinguished.
I’m thankful for an Edit option for stupid typos!
I’m glad y’all’s trials in recent weeks have been resolved. Happy Thanksgiving.
Hurrah for all of you, for your lives and all that sustains them.
I am grateful for Ricochet and the impulse that brought me here; for the kindness, good humor and wisdom I’ve been met with and yes, for the occasional rebukes (mostly well-deserved) and nearly-audible patient sighs, prayers when I needed them and lots of laughter. Though it is peculiar to describe people as friends when we’ve never clapped eyes on one another nor been properly introduced, you all have become my friends. Thank you, and thank God.
I’m thankful for Ricochet, Texas Tech football (they play UT tonight!) and cheerleaders.
I year and a month or so later I’m still thankful beyond words or emotions to be home with my family. And I’m thankful to be free.
Thankful that my life is so good that it is little work to be grateful in large measure, for a happy healthy family, for the provision of our daily needs and the ability to enjoy our feast together.
Happy Thanksgiving!!
Claire,
I didn’t answer your question directly because it made me think. I am thankful that I have Ricochet and a world which reminds me of what is really important and what is not.
Some people think this is important:
Sofia Vergara scores by sharing wedding photos on Instagram
This event actually happened about 1/2 mile from where I live.
Gd has been so kind as to show me what is really important. This event took place 6500 miles from where I live.
Bride’s brother: We’re showing no one can defeat Israel
MAZELTOV!!!
Regards,
Jim