Well the blessed week has finally arrived. Thanksgiving Week! I love this week because I love to cook and bake and eat and hang out with friends and family and watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. I am not very hip anymore because I no longer recognize any of the singers or actors that they interview every year during the parade, but it’s tradition and I watch it every single year. Mr. Wonderful groans every single year but patiently waits to change the channel to football until Santa has made his annual entry into the holiday season.
This year my best friend of 35 years, Heidi, and her family are coming to celebrate for a few days. I am very excited as I don’t think we have ever spent a holiday together. I am beginning to get my ducks in a row for the big day and I am so thankful that I am done with treatment and feel well enough to tackle the big cooking extravaganza.
I have been making an effort over the last several years in my journals to write down the things that I am thankful for. I am finding now though that writing it down isn’t always enough. I need to be actively saying out loud what I am thankful for whether it’s to someone else or in prayer. When you are constantly talking about what you are thankful for its harder to focus on the things in your life that are difficult.
As you well know by now this has been kind of a tough year in the Olson household and you can imagine that some days have been harder than others to actively find things to be thankful for.
The family photo above was taken by my sweet friend Echo Olson.
It was taken on January 2nd. Two days after I had been diagnosed with breast cancer. That long luxurious hair I am sporting are clip in extensions that I bought in San Diego a few years back when I had a girls weekend with my mom and sisters. The morning of the photo shoot I called my mom and asked “cute hair or normal hair?” She replied in true southern girl fashion, “Sweetie we always opt for the cute hair.”
So Echo helped me style “the cute hair,” and off we went to take some photos of a family who still looked relatively normal. I wanted those photos because I knew that everything was going to change and I wanted a marker of the before. The neat thing is that Echo knew this without me even having to ask. She was the one that suggested the photo shoot, she helped me get ready and then her and Ryan spent most of the day taking photos of us.
We were silly…
We were serious…
But most of all we were just hangin out with our friends.
I look at these photos now and it feels like they were taken a lifetime ago. I am not sure that I will ever be able to say that I am thankful for cancer but I can say that I am thankful for the new perspective on life. I am thankful for the friendships that are stronger now than ever before. I am thankful for my husband who has endured much behind the scenes and for my kids who have proven to be courageous warriors. I am thankful for my parents and siblings who went above and beyond by traveling here in shifts to hold down the fort while Mr. Wonderful was at work.
Most of all I am thankful for my God whose love never changes. He never lets go, he never gives up and he can handle anything that I dish out.
Happy Thanksgiving My Friends!
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Beautifully spoken!
You are cherished by many!
Love you!