Happy Thanksgiving!

It's the Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada, an annual tradition of enjoying the bounty of the harvest season.

We are beginning our feasting today by attending a dinner with some of Ellen's cousins whose company I very much enjoy.

Tomorrow, we gain some additional weight by having dinner with those of our kids who can attend at my son's home (I think there will only be three of six present) plus at least one, but hopefully more, of our grandkids.

I have much to be thankful for! Most of all, I am thankful for the doctors, nurses and therapists who aided me four years ago when I inexplicably developed Guillain Barre Syndrome (GBS), a condition I had never heard of, nor could pronounce, let alone understand. The condition caused my total paralysis, (well, at least from the neck down) and for a moment or three, my death.

Those medical professionals were able to resuscitate me in the Ajax-Pickering Hospital's Intensive Care Unit, and help me over the next several weeks begin to regain my strength. They taught me how to walk again and become mobile. They returned my sense of independence to me.

I am thankful that I have been blessed with these past four 'bonus' years, with many more yet to come (I hope!). I am thankful that in the past four years I have been able to 'hang out' and do some traveling with my wife, hold my grand daughter, walk my eldest daughter down the aisle and sing at her wedding. I am thankful that we have been able to continue to offer help and encouragement to all of our kids as they work hard to establish their own niches in this often overly-harsh world.

I suspect we all have much to be thankful for and that is my, at least, partial list. What is on your list?