Trying to be thankful

We watched this WWII show the other night about the art collected/stolen/taken by the Nazis during the war. It was very interesting, where they hid it, who found it, etc. But part of the story was the Siege of Lenningrad. I think because of the cold war, I somehow tuned out this little piece of history when studying WWII. A million civilians died from starvation and cold that winter. That would be like one in 5 in Boston. It made me feel very thankful.

However, at the same time the last year has been terribly unhappy and it all started last Thanksgiving. We were moving to the new shop and Mark's dad was diagnosed with cancer. Uncle Charlie had a stroke in December and died two weeks later. The kicker there was the funeral service on the 23rd and I remember traveling on the 24th to come home to an undecorated tree, unwrapped presents and both fathers MIA. Mark's dad was in intensive care and my dad just went home, completely devastated from the loss of his only brother.

It never got better. We had three weeks to get the GTB done and it was low point in my life.There was tremendous fighting and anger and rage which continued right on through the end of the month.

We did take a nice vacation in early February. The guys rented bikes and rode off and Rachel and I just hung out quietly in Naples. Mark became obsessed with having a new Harley and customizing it. He got rid of his "old" bike in March that had 1,500 miles and bought a new one that he worked out exhaustively and wasn't finished until July. In the meantime, we had a Pebble beach project and the customer didn't pick the paint color until June. It was one of the worst weather summers on record in New England. We didn't stay at camp more than a handful of times and when we did, we didn't do anything. Mark didn't want to see anyone because he was too tired.

I am struggling with this Thanksgiving. Is it the beginning of a new and better year or is this just going to be more of the same and if so, what am I prepared to do about it.