Little goodnesses

collected on this Thanksgiving morning

I sat down to try and write something about Thanksgiving, but it’s hard to focus when my kids are running laps around the table.

They don’t know or care that it’s Thanksgiving, to them it’s just another day. Another great day to be alive and turn the coffee table into a parking lot for all their matchbox cars and coerce me into reading Fox in Socks for the eighteenth time in the last two days (I’m getting pretty good at it).

The baby is asleep in his crib. He’s a tummy sleeper, just like his big brother. Every time I start feeling thankful that he naps so well on his own, a tiny part of me feels sad that I’m not at his mercy, trapped on the couch with nothing to do but press my cheek against his soft little baby head.

The cat just came to say hello to me. He sprang up onto the table and made a fluffy black cat-loaf right next to my laptop, and my husband was jealous because out of our three cats, Zuko is his BFF.

My little girl has been carrying around her new baby doll all wrapped up in a blanket. She’s a good mom, but sometimes the baby’s head gets smacked on the door frame of their bedroom. Just another casualty of childhood.

Now they’re playing Mario Kart, an unofficial holiday tradition, since it’s one of those video games you don’t have to be good at to enjoy. Our near-3-year-old son has a lot of opinions about which car to pick. So does his dad. God help us.

Both of the toddlers know an impressive amount of information about Mario Kart characters. I think that means we must be pretty good parents.

In a little while we will pack ourselves up and go to my parents’ house, from which has been emanating the smell of fresh-baked bread since yesterday. My children will terrorize their grandpa in that angelic-toddler way while I help set the table.

At some point my mom and sister and I will enjoy a cup of tea together, and I’ll be reminded how profoundly thankful I am that none of the TikTok advice on how to deal with toxic relatives applies to me, and that all these people expected me to bring was a little slice of adorable chaos, and a salad.

I’ve always been a collector—of rocks, of teddy bears, of books; this morning I’m collecting all the goodness from these moments.

For sometimes I look at my children and suddenly, the uncertainty of the future hits me with dreadful coldness, like Elrond’s premonition of his daughter Arwen. You will linger on, in darkness and in doubt, as nightfall in winter that comes without a star.

But in the end, when my heart laments that nothing is certain, I hear God’s answer in the good, small things—Some things are certain—and I know that each of them is a promise of restoration to come. He is King, above all things, and that in itself is a goodness far beyond any that we know in this tremulous side of life.