Thankful

I am thankful for:

Being able to own a home. It's a comfort to know that my place, however humble (and it is), is mine and mine alone. It's a refuge from the world, and so many of us aren't so lucky to have one.

My health is pretty good for age 43. I feel good, I can exercise and work, I don't get winded easily and don't have to take any meds. I hear of so many people who are housebound or reliant upon medication and treatments to make it through their day, who have to rely on others to do things for them. I may not always be so lucky, but today, I am.

I'm thankful for my job. As much as I mostly despise it, it provides me income that allows me to live and a man without work is a man without real purpose, no matter how drudgerous the task. I take pride in my work, despite the knowledge that most of my co-workers probably think I'm insane for working there and can't figure out why I stay.

I'm thankful for the companionship of my cats. They don't talk, they can't provide advice or the depth of a human relationship, obviously, but their presence reminds me that life is better than non life, that I can still effect some influence, still do some real good to the world. Their entire presence here says "you're still important, Michael...you are still needed."

I'm thankful for my friends, most of whom I could never have survived the last two years and eight months.

I'm thankful for having the parents I had (and still have). I'm thankful for the feeling of being loved, absolutely and unconditionally. Their memory and the innate feeling of affection that it engenders warm me through long lonely days, moments of extreme depression when it feels like there's no point in going on.

Michael J. Miller , November 20, 2007