My brother and I had had the same kindergarten teacher, and every year she taught the class to make a cranberry relish that’s basically just ground up cranberries, apples, and oranges, with sugar.  We made it at home every year, and Mike and I would spend hours (it seemed) happily taking turns at turning the handle and dropping in the cranberries, and in the manner of smalls, happily making the screaming sound effect for each berry as it popped and vanished into the mill.  Good times: we were busy helping each other, we enjoyed our work, and the food was good.  Inevitably a whole cranberry would get in, though.  Obviously that one was the “lucky cranberry,” and soon we were putting a whole one – the largest one – in on purpose.  I would spend the whole of Thanksgiving dinner with one eye on the relish bowl, hoping to get the whole one.

Our cranberries were often picked by my relatives on the Cape.  Apparently when I was really little I picked cranberries too; there is photo evidence for this but I don’t remember it.  Some years the harvest was good, and some years not so good.  One year there were hardly any berries at all, and they were expensive in the stores, too.   That year we put two whole berries in the bowl:  a big one, from the store-bought bag, and a tiny one, painstakingly picked from the bog.  That year, they were more than just lucky – they were blessings.  And every year afterward, we chose the largest berry, for thankfulness for the times when we prosper and have plenty, and the smallest berry, for blessings we find in times of hardship, and that is how the tradition settled in my mind.

Thinking of those two kinds of thankfulness help me, too, in differentiating between things I’m thankful for, and things I simply like.  I like a lot of things, but thankfulness feels different.  Lately it makes me cry a lot.  This past year has felt like a tiny-cranberry year, and I’ve been profoundly grateful for little things: for one open door in a long halls full of closed ones, for a moment of peace and quiet in the middle of the storm, for little kindnesses in cold places, and for the patience of the people who love me.  I am aware that I can be annoying.

I think, though, that there are some big cranberries that I’ve gotten so used to, I forget to be grateful.  I am thankful for my house.  It’s not a beautiful house; it’s small and square with old-fashioned windows, and tiny closets.  But it’s sturdy and safe, and big enough for other people to stay with me, and when it’s clean inside and the lawn is mowed (ahem) it’s not bad-looking.  And it’s worth something to the bank, which suddenly means my life has possibilities I thought might be closed forever.

My family is amazing.   I’m thankful for my sister in law, who has raised my niece and nephew really really well. They gave me a matchboxcar massage Thanksgiving morning while I was still “asleep,” and because I said I miss my cats when I’m away from home, they re-enacted my cats’ morning breakfast-seeking behavior for me. All of this was actually fairly cute. I’m thankful for my niece and nephew (and for lil’ e).

I’m thankful for my brother, because he’s one of my best friends, and that doesn’t always happen in families.  I’m thankful that his deployment is slightly delayed, and he won’t have to leave home any time soon. I’m thankful that all my family are safe and well.

I’m thankful for beautiful North Carolina fall weather, which can make a bad day better and a nice day perfect.

I’m thankful for Paul, who seems to have an endless supply of patient kindness.  I’m thankful for my friends, who are funny, even when everybody is hurting.  Kindness, patience, and a good laugh might be the small berries that get you through a dry season, but the people I love have these qualities in such abundance that I am constantly astonished by it.

I am thankful for people who know me well and love me anyway.

As a postscript, I will quote Kyler, who doesn’t quite have the concept of thankfulness as distinct from love; it’s a bit abstract – we know what he means, though.

“I am thankful for my dinner. 

I am thankful for my family. 

I am thankful for the poor people. 

I am thankful for cows.”