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Teaching Thankfulness

Small construction-paper leaves lay scattered on the table. Ribbons, a hole punch, and scissors sit close by. These are the makings of our Thankful Tree.

When Thanksgiving Day comes on Thursday, we will be ready. We will tote our homemade cranberry sauce, a pumpkin pie my husband insists on making from scratch (despite my illogical fondness for canned pumpkin), and the accoutrement of our Thankful Tree to the home of our relatives.

At some point during the busy bustling day, we will head outside and cut a branch off a leafless tree. We will stand the branch up, surround it by orange, yellow, and red paper leaves on a table with a few Sharpies, and let our family fill the tree with written expressions of all that we have to be thankful for.

I equate thankfulness with appreciating life’s small joys, and in this regard my father has been a shining example, a consummate teacher. Even in bleak places, bleak times, beauty exists.

In 2006, my dad was admitted to the intensive care unit with renal failure, and received the shocking diagnosis of multiple myeloma, a cancer of the plasma cells in the bone marrow. Uncertain of his fate, he still somehow found jokes to make, bringing smiles to the hospital staff and to his terrified family. We literally smiled through tears as he met my 6-week-old daughter for the very first time in that scary, capricious place.

This is a man who, when he has to undergo the painful procedure of a bone marrow biopsy to assess the condition of his disease, has been known to sing the Beatles' "Twist and Shout" as the tech inserts the needle into his hip bone and rotates it to extract a bone marrow sample. Wherever he goes, laughter materializes like magic.

For his sixtieth birthday last May, a birthday none of us thought he would see, I gave my dad the gift of a series of improvisation classes. He found a way to share the gift of laughter: he convinced the improv group to perform for his myeloma support group. He knows, and he has taught me: Laughter is medicine too, best taken daily.

In taking life too seriously, we are sure to miss out on some good belly laughs. And laughter, after all, is really about connection to others.

So, on this Thanksgiving, I am thankful for the big joys and the little ones.

Little ones, like my children and the feel of pumpkin pie on my tongue. Big ones, like my father and his forever laughter.

Dana Petersen Murphy is a stay-at-home-mother who lives Janesville. Dana is a community blogger and is not a part of Janesville Gazette staff. Her opinion is not necessarily that of the Janesville Gazette staff or management.