To Give Thanks...

This Thanksgiving I will wake up alone in an empty house.

My mother gone almost 2 years now.

My dad off with his new love, to see her children.

My ex wife and her boyfriend will celebrate at her home, with my children.

I have much I could lament.

I have much to yearn for.

But I will give thanks, instead.

Over a year ago, working a job that was pure hell, with an abusive boss and a hellish commute.

I was dying.

Literally.

I remember so vividly.

I was driving home from work in the Spring shortly after I started the job.

I said out loud, to myself, in the car.

"I am not going to make it".

I knew then and there, that I would not survive.

So, I started going every day after work to the refuge I had come to love.

I'd pack my cameras in the car, and head down for the last few hours of sunlight.

And I would do that whenever I could.

It was 92 miles from work to the refuge. I would make it in under 2 hours, and get there at 6 PM. Enough time to do maybe 2 hours of shooting in the last light of day.

And it saved my life.

In the course of the last 2 years, I could not predict what was to come.

It started out as the last refuge of a desperate man, trying to hold on.

What it turned out to be was a blessing beyond all I could imagine.

I made so many new friends.

I helped to bring all of us together, with regular meetups, gatherings and lunches.

What I found was that so many of us go there when our lives have been shattered.

It is the place for those of us whose souls are yearning to be free.

Free from pain.

Free from worry.

Free from the stresses of a life long lost, where we try with all we have to find the beauty. The joy. The freedom.

So, on this Thanksgiving.

Thank you.

Joe, Susan, Jack, Ann Marie, Kathleen, Glenn, Steve, James, Rockey, Dee, Larry, Ray, Shawn, Murray, Mark, Christine, Kathleen, Tom, Jim, Art, Bob, Leroy, "Penguin", Kurt, Barry, Ruth....and many others.

My new friends.

If I had led the life most thought I should, I would never have met you all. I would not have shared the good times together. Or been privileged to get to know you.

I had to lose it all to find what really mattered.

My love and thanks to you all.

I am blessed.