Gratefulness and unanswered prayers

by Helen DePrima

Thankfulness can take many forms. I hark back to a Garth Brooks song: "Thank God for Unanswered Prayers." I think of the times in my life when a loss turned out to be a gain, a disappointment made way for a greater good.

I never knew my mother; she died the day I was born, possibly an anesthesia death. I like to think she simply went to sleep at the happiest moment of her life, expecting to wake holding her new baby. Sometimes growing up, I dreamed about her, the dark-haired young woman in snapshots and portraits whose smile seemed to light my whole small world. A sad tale, except that I grew up with my grandparents and aunt on their Kentucky farm, a story-book childhood of fields and woods, horses and pet goats and lambs, kittens and chickens, with five cousins living barely a stone’s throw away.

Because I fell in love with all things Western after a dude ranch visit, I attended the University of Colorado with the express goal of finding a cowboy to marry. I should have done better research; all the cowboys were forty miles north at Colorado State. Instead I married an Italian from New Jersey, a husband who would go through fire or flood for me. With fifty years of marriage behind us, I have sense enough to be thankful for my unanswered prayer that brought me with him to New Hampshire rather than my earlier fantasy of life in Colorado.

After spending the better part of a year back home in Kentucky caring for my elderly aunt who raised me, I tried to write a personal account of returning to my childhood home, this time as the parent. A total non-starter – instead, I turned it into a novel of what my aunt’s life should have been except for giving up a Navy career to take my mother’s place. I’m proud of that book, which gave me the confidence to embark on my Cameron’s Pride series for Heartwarming.

Sometimes, the road not taken, the opportunity abandoned, deserve as much gratefulness as the way our lives do play out. Thank God for Unanswered Prayers. 

by Liz Flaherty

Helen and I wanted to visit Thanksgiving because, after all, it's November. I loved her path to thankfulness with all the twists and turns in it that make life so interesting. It also make me think of some of my own experiences with life happening while I was making other plans.

• I wanted to move far away from where I grew up, where it was flat and boring and I'd had a less-than-happy childhood. I have spent the last 40 years living five miles from the house where I grew up. I love it there.
• As I grew up, I gave little thought to having children. There would be plenty of time for that later. After I'd had all the other adventures I wanted to have, perhaps I would have one. No more than two. Instead, I had three--all by the time I was 23. Thank goodness.
• I'm afraid of water. To the point of always preferring a shower to a tub. So one of my first post-retirement adventures was parasailing. Over the Gulf of Mexico. Or heaven, however you want to look at it.
• One day in 1979, I skipped a day of work to take a civil service test an hour away from home. I never expected anything to come of it (other than losing a day's pay), but I passed the test--with less than flying colors--and went to work at the Post Office two years later. I retired after 30 years. 

In actuality, not much has gone according to plan. Not my plan, anyway. And for that, I am truly grateful.

Happy Thanksgiving!