As I looked around the table on Thanksgiving night, I felt a smile creep across my face. I was surrounded by the greatest friends, parents, siblings, and grandparents I could ever ask for. But almost simultaneously, I recognized that one major presence was lacking this year. Even though he wouldn’t have been sitting at my table, I could feel his absence from this Thanksgiving night.
Death is a crazy thing – it instantly throws your life into perspective. It makes not sweating the small stuff and taking in every moment of the only life you’ve got that much more important. Death happens, and we can’t avoid that. But what we can do is take what’s happened and reflect it in our lives moving forward, because our lives don’t – and can’t – stop when someone else’s does.
Death makes you realize how important it is to live in the here and now. We all focus too much on planning amazing memories for the future or on documenting each and every moment that sometimes we forget to just live.
So, don’t worry about studying for your midterm in two weeks when you could be helping your baby cousin build a house out of blocks. Don’t fret over planning your spring break trip during lunch when you could be talking to your Bubbie who’s sitting right in front of you. Don’t text under the table about your pregame plans for tonight when you could be engaging in conversation with your family over dinner. Don’t snapchat your meals to show everyone on social media when you could be enjoying your meal with the people you love. Don’t complain that you have yet to see the high school friends you hardly even liked when you could be snuggling with your mommy on the couch. Don’t make a vine of your little cousin dancing when you could be joining in with her and showing her how it’s done. Don’t turn on Netflix because you’re tired and lazy when you could take your siblings to Target to buy matching superman onesies. Don’t plant yourself in front of the TV for a Law and Order: SVU marathon when you could be doing summersaults in the basement with your best friend. Don’t stuff yourself with food just because it’s there when you could be taking your dog for a walk around the neighborhood. Don’t stress about not getting enough sleep tonight when you could stay up until 4 am having a heart to heart with your best friends.
But most importantly, don’t take any moment for granted when you don’t know what the future holds or when your whole life could change.
Now, as I sat at a table filled with beautiful decorations and delicious food, I felt his presence. This Thanksgiving, I wasn’t thankful for Netflix, snapchat, Black Friday, Instagram, Facebook, Nordstrom, Easy Mac, or LBD’s. No – this Thanksgiving I was thankful for my wonderful life, filled with people who love and support me – the people who surrounded me at that very moment. Because at the end of the day, those are the people who give my life meaning. It’s not about how many likes my Instagram gets or the amount of shoes in my closet, but about the people whom I surround myself with and who shape the way I think and act at every moment.
So yes, it killed me to know that this Thanksgiving, there would be one less place setting. But at the same time, I knew that I couldn’t have gotten to this point in my life without that very person. Because of him I have a new outlook on life, and without his support, advice, and love, I wouldn’t be the person I am today. I have been forever changed by the friendship I was so blessed to have for the time we had together. And that is something I will always be thankful for.