How many times per day do you say thank you? The answer is probably more than you think. But how many times do you truly mean it?

With today being the formal day of Thanksgiving, we should pause to think about what it means to say thank you and question ourselves about what we are truly thankful for.

I have a friend who is in his third marriage — maybe his fourth. If I were a better friend, I would know this. He is admittedly not a perfect spouse, but, through it all, he has learned a great deal about what to be thankful for, and he enlightened me years ago with some of his experiences.

His first comment dealt with his initial wedding, when he chose his friends of the time as his groomsmen. When that marriage failed, those friends were “nowhere to be found,” he shared. In his second wedding, he chose family to be in the wedding party. “Friends can be fair-weather,” he told me. “But family is forever.” How true.

In that second marriage, he and his wife were blessed with a child. Despite their love for her, their love for each other dissipated, and they divorced. “I wanted a divorce to get away from her (his wife),” my friend shared. “But what I learned is that, if you have a child together, you never really get away from each other. We had to learn to talk, to communicate, and we did so better than we ever did when we were married. Makes me wonder if life would have been better if we would have worked as much on our relationship when we were married as we did when we were divorced.” I know very few people who can be that honest.

By the time my friend’s third (or fourth) marriage came around, I became one of those fair-weather friends. Although we may not see each other often anymore, his two comments about relationships stuck with me to this day.

All this reminds me of what’s really important. Family. Friends. Relationships. The rest of the stuff isn’t very significant, at least in the big picture. My friend’s stories also remind me that we all fail, and that none of us is perfect, but we can still learn from each other.

With that in mind, I wish you, your family and your friends all the best. Have a thankful Thursday, and, as always, thank you for reading.

Shane Goodman
President and Publisher
Big Green Umbrella Media
shane@dmcityview.com
515-953-4822, ext. 305

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A quick study: Dierenfeld takes to the ice and wins a bronze.

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SUBMIT: Send your birthday greetings and congratulatory notes to:tammy@iowalivingmagazines.com