My Thanksgiving List 2013

My Thanksgiving List

I am thankful that I am alive.  Honestly, in 2013, at times, that has been enough.  Truthfully, 2013 has certainly provided me the opportunity to feel nearly every emotion possible in the human spectrum.

In no particular order, I thought it important to state what, or more importantly, whom I am thankful.  Yet, with the danger of making any list, forgetfulness and absentmindedness are factors, feel free to suggest additions to my list of individuals, events, or things for which I am thankful.  Not everyone will be listed, due to constraints of time, memory, perception, and length.

The condensed version:  Mom, Marc & Cindy, Extended relatives, Celia & Barb with extended friends.  Other Friends - close & dear, and friends not so close and dear.  The support from GSDBA and Waddell & Reed, The Cannon Family, Sean and Dom, and Carleton's Aunt Jackie.  Mostly, the experience of Carleton.  Lastly, a new resolved feeling of relevance.  (disclosure:  the list is not necessarily in value order or is to imply exclusion or inclusion of value should your name be listed or not listed.  It is a condensed listing only).

This listing is a more expansive expression with further exploration of what determined the inclusion on the list:

I cherish my mother, Beth.  Her combination of values, perspectives, and wisdom I constantly seek.   Her purpose and motivations endears her to many.  While others call her Beth or Aunt Beth, I am so very thankful I am one of a precious few who get to call her Mom.  She taught me inclusion, unrelenting love, forgiveness, and grace.  I am sure, at times, she would prefer I cherished these values more limitedly than I have. 

Yet, even this year, she moved me by demonstrating why I call her Mom.  I regularly called to vent, to share updates or relay more bad news.  Yet, she bore it with me.  Perhaps because I am her son.  Perhaps because she knew there were few I would burden.  She moved outside of her Mom-ness to reach me, reason with me, support me, and, yes, even console me.  Sometimes, she simply listened as I sobbed.  She is able to be with me at moments when I cannot be with others.  This year, I realized that it is she who taught me how to create a refuge for others.  Her refuge is always open to me, it seems.

I also cherish her pies, Christmas cookies, knitting, my Christmas stocking, and general ability to tolerate me talking.

I am thankful for my siblings, Marc and Cindy (and the partners they have).  While they are far away, they have worried and raised concerns.  They do not often have to say anything at all.  They just are.  It is something quirky about our family.  We just “are”. 

I am so fortunate to be acquainted with so many people.  The diversity and combination of experience, skill, perception, capacity, and ability of each is a source of fascination that constantly pulls me into the realm of awe.

 

This year is no exception.  I am truly thankful for my friends.  My thankfulness includes those who are near and dear along with those who have simply felt we were acquaintances.  When someone goes through a terrible loss, no one know what comment or show of concern tips the balance toward renewal.  Some friends were called to come to my rescue this year in caring for Carleton.  Some friends extended invitations to visit their homes as places of refuge or rejuvenation. 

Celia came at the request of Carleton simply to be with me and confirm my deepest fears.  Few would have dared to make me face it.  Loyalty has a cost.  Loyalty does not hide the truth.  Deep friendship bears the cost of reality, love, and pain.  Intense toughness know its own.

I am thankful for my friends who have helped me through 2013.  Those of you who came to my home or had me at yours.  Friends made sure I was alive days after Carleton died.  Some texted me each day.  Others e-mailed.  Others simply lived with me vicariously through Facebook and my blog.  Each interaction this year was important to me.  From my La Grande friends who reached out in concern to those in Portland and beyond, thank you.  Your cards, notes, e-mails, retorts, taunts, and encouragement did help maintain my sanity.  One high point was the nearly 200 happy birthday wishes for me.

To Sue and Mary Jo, Jen, Celia & Barb, Kevin, Mary & Patricia, Ellen, Tory, Matt & Daniel, Rene, Andy, and Kevin, Karen, Jeanne, Marci, the GSDBA Board, James Haug, Mike Cavallo and many who just asked how I was doing.  Wow, you watched as the train wreck started and did not abandon until the emergency subsided.  You did not ask and simply made my decisions for me.  Or had lunch with me.  Truly friends.

I am thankful for the support the last year from Waddell& Reed people who helped me stay on track with clients, compliance, and the ever changing and expected responsibilities in my career.  The patience and support from this “other family” I have enjoyed for over 20 years simply, and deeply, moved me.  Their acceptance, and my clients’ patience and support of my commitment to Carleton made the struggle of 2013 much easier.

I am thankful for Jackie, Carleton’s Aunt, for her quiet entrances and departures.  When emotions are raw, gentleness is a valuable commodity.  Dominique, Carleton’s other aunt, became a new friend and help to understanding family dynamics.

I am thankful that I was allowed to be a part, for a time, of the Cannon Clan.  Carleton often called it a circus without a tent.  I will leave it to your imagination.  I continue to be thankful that the family did not make a difficult time more difficult.  I cannot imagine losing a brother and twin or a son.   I know Carleton worried about this above all.

Carleton

What I am most thankful for?  My time with Carleton.

I am thankful that I met Carleton Cannon and spent three tumultuous years of his life with him.  He was not perfect and neither am I.  Our relationship was not lengthy but it was intensely lived.  If I had never met him, I would be quite different today, certainly.  Yet, I am so very glad I did.  Though the cost has been great emotionally and in other ways.

Carleton demanded that I love him.  He required and yearned for my focus.  He did not share easily and I was accustomed to providing my time and attention unguarded. 

I have been raised not to demand of others but simply to ask.  While some have an expectation of others, I have lived my life in hope, not demand.  Carleton’s deteriorating health required more of me than hope.  His reality required more than I was able to give.  I experienced moments of his grief, despair, fear, anger, along with his denial, acceptance, ultimately his entire range of intense, unfiltered and very raw emotional expressions.  I have never been an extension of someone else.  Yet, in some way, our connection allowed him the ability to assure most, if not all, of his hopes.  I became an extension of him.

Through the last year of his life, I worried he was not considering his end.  I worried he might not prepare to meet his God.  At times, our conversations led down this road, yet we all have areas of secrets and hurts that we do not share with anyone, easily.  Ultimately, communication between Mom & Carleton created his pathway of acceptance for his future, should he no longer be able to fight.  Ultimately, finding peace is what everyone is most thankful to find.

In return for my all, my giving, attentiveness, and living with Carleton, he gave me the one thing that I have longed to have.  Secretly, and not so secretly over my chosen career, the volunteering I do, the people I have helped, the causes I support, the friends that I select, all have been based on a deep seated need to feel relevant.  Some might call it their legacy. 

Relevance to the world, to others, to people I know is a deep value of mine.  My secret horror was that at the end of my days I would look back and feel that my life did not matter, that what I did made no difference.

Carleton, with his life at an end, in quiet moments before his end, resolved that horror.  At the end of his days, he relied on me to make decisions no one should have to make.  He acknowledged and accepted my choices without comment.  He knew I would bear the choices.  He submitted or surrendered in the process.  Carleton, in his actions, acknowledged my relevance.

Truly, 2013 will continue to be a terribly significant year.  I am thankful it is near an end.  I look forward to new beginnings.  But, I am thankful for those who participated in my life this year.  And, that I had relevance to one.