“I’d surely buy you a Cadillac” – Andrew Gold

The young man standing directly in front of me seemed to appear magically out of thin air. No, not Andrew Gold, but a brown-haired, glasses-wearing twenty-something in khakis and a dress shirt. I hadn’t noticed this ninja-in-training who had been lurking in the corner to my left as I had entered the nursing home where my mom lives. He obviously had been biding his time waiting for the right unsuspecting target to walk through the door. Instinctually, I had ventured to the right towards the sign-in log and had noticed it was a mandatory mask-wearing day. So, as I was putting on my mask and turning to go see my mom, he was just there blocking my path, looking directly into my startled eyes.

“We’re asking everyone what they’re thankful for,” he said holding his clipboard and pen at the ready. “Do you have anything you’re thankful for that we can add to our survey?”

My initial thought was “Yeah, I’m thankful you weren’t a hired hitman here to take me out.”

Truth be told though, I thought “Dude, I’m in a nursing home where no one wants to be probably including you, and most of these residents are sadly living out the final days of their lives. Thankful? Hardly.”

It was a narrow-minded, selfish thought, I’ll admit, but a very real thought that visits my mind every time I step foot inside the same facility that held the sad final few months of my dad’s life in the summer of 2021. But instead of relaying any of this to him, which undoubtedly would have created an awkward moment for us, I forced a smile and simply answered with the always popular cliché “family.” A cliche, but a true statement as well, and also one that seemed to satisfy the young man as he noted my response on his clipboard and went back to his camouflaged blind in the corner. I soldiered on into the dining area to meet mom for a Thanksgiving luncheon sitting at a table with her amongst a full house of visitors and residents already putting dents into their pre-Thanksgiving turkey dinners.

Later as I reflected on the interaction I thought that maybe this young man’s presence and his specific question were an intentional and purposeful plan set in place by the nursing home to help shift the focus for most people entering that day. If so, kudos to the nursing home for at least attempting to shift the narrative in many minds on the day before Thanksgiving in a facility no one wants to be in. And maybe that is what was needed.

When it comes to the chaos, the uncertainty, the times of hopelessness and confusion in our lives, there can be periods and stretches of unthankfulness. Sure we inherently know and many of us are taught that we should be thankful for friends and employment and health and our family, but if we’re being honest there are many times we are not thankful for some or parts of those complicated pieces of our lives. Difficult family relationships, hurtful friendships, and economic hardships are all ships of unthankfulness we don’t particularly want to sail on, but end up on anyway at times, because, well, life.

So if you’re having trouble finding the big items to be thankful for in your life this weekend, maybe just focus on (or stumble upon or into) the unintentional small things that you might not even notice consciously until later that can cause the momentary shifts, the temporary distractions, the change in narrative that you may need at any given moment. Those times where an exciting football game bonds you with others, or when you’ve completed that impossible 5000-piece puzzle, or maybe you just won the longest game of Catan in Catan history. Maybe it’s something as simple as when a gravel road turns into pavement or you spot a Northern Flicker in your tree for the first time, or you complete a long overdue post for your blog. And yes, maybe it’s those times when you’re feeling low and a twenty-something stranger appears out of nowhere and asks you a simple question.

What are you thankful for?

And when we both get older
With walking canes and hair of gray
Have no fear, even though it’s hard to hear
I will stand real close and say

I’d never seen a video for this song until today nor did I realize it was a song actually released in 1978 by a man named Andrew Gold. Gold was part of the soft pop movement of the ’70s, and best I can tell, carved out a nice career in the music industry before succumbing to heart failure in 2011 at the age of 59. He collaborated with the likes of Linda Ronstadt, Art Garfunkel, and Eric Carmen, to name just a few, and left us with a few solo hits, including “Lonely Boy” (1977), “Never Let Her Slip Away” (1978), and of course, this one that hit #25 on the U.S. Top 100 in 1978. It also received a resurgence in the ’80s with the hit sitcom “The Golden Girls.”

A big thank you to all of you reading this blog and of course my friends, and yes a thank you to my family. And a thank you to Andrew for writing this little ditty that took him “about an hour to write.” It may have been written in 1978, but its’ popularity surely peaked every Saturday night from 1985 to 1992 when “The Golden Girls” sitcom played on NBC and a remake of the song by Cynthia Fee was used in the opening credits. I find it fitting that his last name is Gold, and a fitting song for this weekend, here is Andrew Gold’s “Thank You For Being a Friend”…

https://youtube.com/watch?v=voNEgCKzves%3Fsi%3DDgn08J92vh5vIxl2

Happy Thanksgiving Weekend!

sincerely,

the80’s