What are you thankful for?
The question circles the room, weaving in-between the turkey and dressing and sweet potato pie.
What are you thankful for?
At times, it feels like the easiest question to answer … and the hardest. Because embedded in the gratitude lingers the difficulties and losses of the past year. It’s hard to look at those empty chairs—some due to illness, others a reminder of the loved ones who won’t ever grace our table again.
How do we answer that question when it seems like every day carries a new struggle, from inflation-driven price increases to a society still reeling from the effects of the lockdown to a nation divided. It’s easy to get caught in the grief of today, of this moment.
For some, though, it isn’tcomplicated. Their responses flow easily from the hearts of those who have seen so much more. They’re the people who have lived through war after war, including one that encompassed the world. They’ve seen death and disease and know what it means to grieve. And yet, for many of the elderly among us, decades of loss and heartache haven’t tainted their ability to embrace gratitude.
Because when you ask them, “What are you thankful for?” you often get a wistful smile.
My family. My faith. My hope for the future.
It’s a blessing to us when we honor people with that perspective.
This was the feeling and motivation behind Monday night’s annual Senior Citizen Thanksgiving Dinner, hosted by the Riverside School District. The dinner has been a regular Riverside event for so long no one is exactly sure when it started, just that it’s been decades since the first one was hosted in the old log cabin.
“We feel our senior citizens are the pillars of the community here,” Scott Mann, district superintendent, said. “We want to make sure we recognize that.”
Students from the Interact group served the traditional Thanksgiving meal, which included turkey, pumpkin pie and pretty much everything in-between. The school also brought in the Majesty Quartet to perform a short concert.
According to Kelly Kauffman, middle and high school principal, this was their first year in person since covid, which might account for the low turnout Monday night. For the last two years, they still offered the meal as a drive-thru option, which was very well-attended.
“Tonight was about half the number of people we normally have,” she said. “We just didn’t know how many to plan on.”
Debbie Gonterman, Interact adviser, said this is her favorite event of the year, adding, “We get to help people we haven’t seen for a long time.”
DeGraff resident and Riverside graduate Margie Hughes was one of the seniors in attendance. “I’m thankful for Jesus, my husband, for my salvation,” she said. “I suppose I could write a hundred pages on what I’m thankful for.”
For those of us who gather around a table tomorrow, whether alone or with enough people to fill an auditorium, let’s start working on our own 100 pages of thanks.
Even if those blessings come with sorrow. Even as we remember this world is not our final destination. Even though our hope lives in what we can barely glimpse beyond the veil.
Even when thanks is all we have to give, if we give it to the One who gave all, that’s enough.