A Season of Gratitude: Looking Back, Looking Around, Looking Forward
Today is Thanksgiving Day. I find myself pausing more often, sometimes in the quiet of early morning, sometimes after finishing a blog entry, to think about what it means to be grateful. Thanksgiving has always asked us to reflect, but this year, gratitude feels less like a ritual and more like a companion walking beside me.
Over the years, I’ve written hundreds of posts, some sparked by world news, some by television shows I’ve rediscovered, and some by memories from my long career with the FDA. Since 2009, blogging has become my way of stitching together the big and small pieces of my life: the breakthroughs in medicine I once evaluated, the pop-culture moments that make me laugh, the thoughtful articles that give me something to consider, and yes, the personal journeys that have shaped my days.
Looking back at my FDA years, especially my time working on anti-malarial drug products and my involvement in the 9/11 aftermath, I am filled with gratitude for the opportunities I had to contribute to public health. Not everyone gets the chance to spend a career in government service, quiet service, often invisible, but meaningful nonetheless. Those years taught me discipline, purpose, and the weight of responsibility. They also taught me how deeply interconnected we all are, how a decision in a federal office could ripple outward and protect lives I would never meet.
This year, gratitude also takes on a more intimate meaning. Living with a serious illness has changed the way I measure time. I have declined dialysis, choosing instead a path of peace, clarity, and presence. I don’t say this with sadness, but with honesty. Every day feels distilled now, sharper in its beauty, quieter in its lessons. I am grateful for mornings when I feel strong, for conversations that make me smile, and for the weekly whole-body massages that have brought comfort to my body and calm to my spirit these past twenty-two months.
And then there is the gratitude that comes from connection, readers who have followed my posts for years, friends who check in, and strangers who find something of themselves in my writing. Blogging has sustained me more than I ever expected. It has allowed me to keep learning, questioning, observing, and sharing even when my world has become smaller and slower.
Today, I find myself giving thanks not for the grand things, but for the real ones: For a life spent doing meaningful work. For stories and shows that remind me how human we all are. For the ability to keep writing, one post at a time. For each moment that is still mine.
May this holiday season be a reminder that gratitude doesn’t always come from abundance, it often comes from awareness. From noticing what still lights us up. From recognizing the people and experiences that carried us this far.
Wherever you are reading this from a bustling kitchen, a quiet living room, or from your apartment in a senior living community, may your Thanksgiving be filled with warmth, honesty, and grace. And may gratitude, however it appears in your life this year, be enough.
Again, Happy Thanksgiving to ALL.
Meanwhile, here's my Thanksgiving Poem, I dedicate to all my blog readers all over the World
I give thanks for quiet mornings,
for a blinking cursor and a waiting page,
where a 91-year-old heart remembers
and turns long decades into measured lines.
I give thanks for bridges crossed twice over—
from Iloilo shores to American offices,
where an immigrant stood his ground with dignity
against the small, sharp cuts of racism.
I give thanks for work once done in crises,
for burnt lives tended and rules made humane,
for service that did not ask for applause
but left its mark in silent, safer days.
I give thanks for the games that keep the mind awake—
for Bridge and Mahjong five days a week,
for aching legs that still insist on walking
around the senior compound, lap by grateful lap.
I give thanks for love that lasted sixty‑three years,
for an empty chair that somehow glows with presence,
for living alone but never truly lonely,
companioned by memory, purpose, and the world that reads.
And tonight, I give thanks for one more sentence,
for the simple fact of still being here to write it—
a blogger in the twilight, steady at the keyboard,
offering his life as a small lamp of gratitude.
Some of Favorite Quotes:
"Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love."
Hamilton Wright Mabie
"May your walls know joy, may every room hold laughter, and every window open to great possibility."
Mary Anne Radmacher
"The holiday season is a perfect time to reflect on our blessings and seek out ways to make life better for those around us."
Anonymous
"May love and light fill your home and heart at Hanukkah."
Unknown
"Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home."
Edith Sitwell
Last, but not list, a Thank you Note from my Neighbor across the Hallway, Sandi Green...
My Food For Thought For Today:
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