Grateful: feast in honor of what was lost

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Late Tuesday morning Rebel Girl will fulfill parental duties and report to her son's local elementary school for the Thanksgiving pageant and feast. She has already prepared a cornucopia stuffed with vegetables, fresh and marinated. It is organically festive.

The son has been reporting on preparations for days now. The kinders (as they're called) will wear "Indian headresses" fashioned from construction paper. They will stand in a line and sing. Days ago it was reported that the kinders would sing two songs. Then, her son reported that the teacher had "cancelled" one of the songs. He was disappointed because the remaining song was all about eating turkey and, well, Rebel Girl's family is pretty much vegetarian.

Mother and father counseled the son that singing about turkey eating is not the same as eating a turkey and there would be times when, being in the minority, he should probably get used to the majority's turkey eating ways. Just sing, Rebel Girl said, you like to sing. Not about turkey, the son insisted. He has a way of insisting, even at five, that is a powerful thing. Did you talk to the teacher about it, Rebel Girl queried. I certainly did, was the reply.

Then, on Monday, a development. The teacher "cancelled" the turkey song and replaced it with another. Why did the teacher cancel it? Rebel Girl asked. Her son reported that the teacher announced that, since she had learned that two students didn't eat turkey for Thanksgiving, she decided to change the class song.

What's the new song about? Rebel Girl asked. Being grateful, her son replied.

So, well, there you have it.

And now, be grateful for this, a poem, by Jane Kenyon:

Happiness

There's just no accounting for happiness,
or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away.

And how can you not forgive?
You make a feast in honor of what
was lost, and take from its place the finest
garment, which you saved for an occasion
you could not imagine, and you weep night and day
to know that you were not abandoned,
that happiness saved its most extreme form
for you alone.

No, happiness is the uncle you never
knew about, who flies a single-engine plane
onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes
into town, and inquires at every door
until he finds you asleep midafternoon.
as you so often are during the unmerciful
hours of your despair.

It comes to the monk in his cell.
It comes to the woman sweeping the street
with a birch broom, to the child
whose mother has passed out from drink.
It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing
a sock, to the pusher, to the basket maker,
and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots
in the night.

It even comes to the boulder
in the perpetual shade of pine barrens,
to rain falling on the open sea,
to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.

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Rebel Girl's household is grateful for much this year. And happy for it as well. Hope you are too~~~