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THANKSGIVING 2008: THE BEST OF TIMES, THE WORST OF TIMES
11/24/2008
I know Thanksgiving is upon us, and it is a time when - besides stuffing ourselves with calorie and cholesterol laden foods that will shorten our lives - we all stop for about fifteen seconds to give thanks for our many blessings.
Only I'm not feeling too thankful this year. I'm feeling angry and sad and scared, but we don't have a holiday for that, do we? Actually, being angry and sad and scared is simply the reality of life for many of us these days.
Okay, I am thankful for a few things, but there are so many horrid things that overshadow the good things that it's hard to remember them. The first lines from the book "A tale of Two Cities" keep going through my head. Indeed it is the best of times and the worst of times and they are intertwined.
For instance, I am truly thankful this year that my mother is still with us. However, the reason I feel that intense thankfulness is because she was diagnosed with acute leukemia eleven months ago and given a terrible prognosis for a very short life (weeks or months at the most). Miraculously, she's still alive and actually feeling fairly good most of the time, thanks to an experimental pill that helped extend her life for a while. The bad news is that it has recently stopped working and that ultimately this is a fatal disease in a woman her age. There is no cure. But while we have all been inconvenienced a great deal with treatments and transfusions, the reality is that she has been relatively pain free for most of the past eleven months. That truly is something to be thankful for, and for the fact that she will have at least one more Thanksgiving to spend with us.
Another thing to be thankful for is the outcome of this presidential election. Already, hungry for intelligent leadership, the nation turns to Barack Obama for guidance, even before his inauguration. My grandson Sean was puzzled the day after the election as to why Obama was not the president that very day. I and many other Americans are asking the same question. Bush obviously doesn't want to be in charge any more, we're all anxious to see him go, and Obama is ready to lead. Why can't we just move up the inauguration?
Which brings me to the "worst of times" part of the first line of the Dicken's classic. Indeed the past eight years have been the worst of times for far too many Americans. The attacks on 9/11, the two wars started by Bush that are still unresolved, the deficit spending which grows more ominous by the day, the disastrous response to Hurricane Katrina, the torture and kidnapping of people suspected of being enemies, the suspension of habeas corpus and the dreadful prison camp in Guantanamo, the climate crisis which was ignored, the ridiculous approach to sex education (and education in general), the anti-science mentality, the moral rhetoric coupled with the most immoral economic policies ever, the bullying of Congress, and the utter abandonment of the middle and working classes with regard to health care, employment, home ownership and retirement savings in this economic disaster are all Bush's legacy.
George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and the entire Bush administration have been a curse inflicted upon this nation. As a result of their ignorance, greed, callousness, ideology and political maneuvering, this nation is worse off in every category that can be measured. The horrible economic crisis that we are now going through has happened before - always in Republican administrations - and these crises always have to be cleaned up by Democrats. So while I do not thank the Almighty, or the voters, for the past eight years of horrible leadership, I am thankful that we finally have a wise and mindful leader in Barack Obama – or at least we will on January 20th.
But that doesn't take away the fear or the anger or the sadness. I am afraid for the financial well being of my husband and me and all my children, none of whom have jobs that are absolutely safe. I wonder if we will have a home next year, or if some of my children will have to move in with us. I worry about our retirement savings and wonder if retirement will ever be an option. I worry about my grandchildren's future. I may be grateful that we finally will have an intelligent president, but I am no Pollyanna, and I know it will take time to fix things. And even then, our way of life may never be the same.
I am also incredible angry. The horrors that we are suffering now at the hands of Republicans did not have to happen. Earthquakes, hurricanes, and fires started by lightning are natural occurrences that no one can prevent, but wars and incompetent response to disaster, and changing the rules to favor the greedy are things that humans chose to do. And George W. Bush chose some very bad things over the past eight years, things that have hurt us immeasurably. Too many lives have been lost. Too many people have lost jobs and homes and health insurance. Too many workers sit in rented apartments, while the CEOs who laid them off ponder which of their ten houses to spend the night in, which yacht to go on vacation in, or which foreign nation to travel to this holiday season.
And I am sad. I have a near constant choking feeling in the back of my throat as I try desperately not to break into tears thinking of all the people who are desperate and scared like me, people who have been evicted from homes someone convinced them they could afford, people who have to choose between food for the week or a doctor's visit for a sick child, people who will be alone this holiday season because their family lives far away and they cannot afford an airplane ticket or the gas to put in their car.
And I am sad for myself and my husband. His father died a month ago and this will be the first holiday season without him, while my mother recognizes this will probably be her last with us. Yet, in spite of that, she constantly reminds me we are lucky. Other people have it worse than she does, she insists. She has family, while her ninety year old friend is completely alone. She has Medicare and a supplemental insurance which pays for her medical treatment, while there are many who cannot afford to see a doctor. She has a home, while there are many who are homeless. She has lived a long and mostly happy life, while many young men and women have had their lives cut short by these dreadful wars.
"No matter how bad things are," she reminds me as we sit in the lab waiting for her turn to have her blood drawn, "there is always someone else who has it much worse." I often think there isn't much worse than being diagnosed with a fatal disease, but I guess there is. Today, thanks to the Bush administration, you can be diagnosed with a fatal disease, have no health insurance, lose your job and your home all at the same time. And a few families will lose a loved one to the horrors of war.
These do, indeed, seem to be the worst of times for many, though January 20th, hopefully, will signal the start of better times.
So this Thanksgiving, I am thankful for the election of Barack Obama, and for the wisdom of lawmakers in the sixties who brought us Medicare, and to the miracles of medical science which have allowed my mother to stick around longer than we ever imagined, giving us an extra year of her love and wisdom.
All content © 2005 outragedcitizen.com
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