Be thankful, even in rough 2020

Every year, for as long as anyone can remember, one of the fixtures of this edition of the newspaper on the day before Thanksgiving has been an editorial expressing thanks.

But if there’s ever been a year when it’s tough to feel thankful, 2020 fills the bill.

The laundry list of things we’re not thankful for could hardly be longer:

•COVID-19, the pandemic and all that has entailed in terms of disruption in our lives, personal loss, and economic pain.

•Stark reminders that decades of effort to perfect this union we hold dear still have fallen short. Disparities in how Black and white Americans are treated when they encounter law enforcement, peaceful protests boiling over and way too many incidents when Americans were talking past one another all add to the unhealthy stew.

•An internet cesspool of vituperation and division, where conspiracy claptrap shouts down civil, fact-based debate.

Friendships have been damaged, and families have been fractured. 

It doesn’t seem to add up to that Norman Rockwell portrait of a family gathering to express thanks.

And yet.

Maybe, just maybe, it’s in a difficult year like this when Thanksgiving is most important.

It’s easy to be thankful in good times.

When the horn of plenty seems to be spilling out nothing but positives, it’s easy to be thankful.

Got a job? Easy to be thankful. Have good health? Easy to be thankful. Peace in the land? Easy to be thankful.

But thankfulness — gratitude — means the most in hard times, difficult times like 2020.

Imagine, if you will, a Thanksgiving gathering in the depths of the Great Depression.

Or in the depths of World War II.

Or during the era of Jim Crow.

Or, for that matter, during the last great pandemic to afflict the globe.

In that sort of context, thankfulness steers back to its roots by necessity.

And a new list comes together:

•Sunshine, sunrise and sunset.

•The laughter of an infant.

•The resilience of the downtrodden and afflicted.

•The loyalty of a good dog.

•The smell of mud after a good rain.

•Music in all its various forms.

•Friends.

•Family.

You get the picture.

Tomorrow on Thanksgiving, it’s the second list that deserves your attention, not the list of crappy things about 2020, but the list that never seems to change no matter what life throws at us.

Make your own list. And be thankful. — J.R.