With life’s many travails, the one good thing to come out of Thanksgiving, despite whatever life has thrown at us, is that the holidays gives us time to reflect on our many blessings – although they may not seem so apparent.

But take just a minute and think of perhaps one thing you have to be thankful for.

Think beyond the usual “I have my health, my job, blah blah, blah,” and see if you can come up with maybe one instance of something that makes you feel great to be alive.

I had my epiphany the other night. The “kids” were over the house with the little guy, and he’s being his usual rambunctious self running all over the place and jumping on furniture.

“Apa” as he likes to call me tries to get his attention, but he’s having none of it. So “Apa” decides to give him something very personal.

As you know, I’m a junkie for anything having to do with mass transit. I have books and a few toys people had given me over the years of transit “tchotchkes!” I figured if I give the little guy one of them, he’d appreciate it and probably never put it down.

So I ran down into the man-cave and took off my shelf a model 1980 Flexible crosstown bus; and giving it to him, said, “say bus…bus!”

“Bus” is not in his vocabulary just yet, but “truck” is…so “truck” it was.

But here’s the clincher – when he was asked who gave him the “truck”, the word “Apa” automatically came out.

And he wouldn’t let the “truck” out of his grasp. All night he slept with it. The entire next day, all he would do is play with it and say over and over “Apa!”

My daughter send me a video of him playing with the bus, asking him who gave it to him, and his immediate response was “Apa!”

“Apa” rates big time – it’s like I’ve waited a lifetime to hear that word – even though I wasn’t expecting to hear it said like that!

“Apa!”

The word means, “thank you, God, for giving me the opportunity to hear that!”
How lucky I am to have arrived at "Apa!"

As for you…think of that one thing you have to be grateful for, and if you can put it down in a few sentences.

Feel free to share.

And happy Thanksgiving.

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