Thanksgiving Reflections

First things first, happy thanksgiving to you all!! Thanksgiving is a special time of year for me; although I try to live a life of thankfulness all year long this is a much more focused time of it. Those of you who follow my writing will know that I had a fairly bad accident Aug 21 and since that time I have not blogged at all, well in the words of Austin Powers "I'm back Baby, Yaaaa!!"

Today is a day in which I celebrate and am thankful for life. Not only am I thanking God today for taking care of me on that August morning, but I'm also joining with my extended family to celebrate the lives of and mourn the loss of two relatives. Today my thoughts and prayers are with my Mothers family as they join together at the funeral of my uncle Herman in Rosthern Saskatchewan. My Dads family awoke to the news this morning that at 3:30 AM my fathers oldest sister passed away in northern Alberta.

Life is such a precious gift and in the end death can be as well. As I started out by saying I have not written since my accident and there are many reasons for that. When in High school and collage I was always a competitive athlete and as such always felt pretty much invincible, you may know the feeling; lightning fast reactions (well maybe not lighting fast, but pretty close), killer body ( Actually I never killed anybody with it ), smart, and generally I made good choices. It is very humbling to realize that in a split second no matter who you are you could loose everything.

The morning of August 21 was a beautiful morning, my routine was exactly the same as always; get up, have breakfast (2 pieces of toast with peanut butter and a glass of Iced Tea), spend some time with the kids as they mooched my breakfast from me, shower, get dressed, say goodbye with hugs and kisses for everyone, walk to the van, turn around as Rachel came screaming out the door that she wanted another hug and kiss, and go to work. This morning I had a meeting in St Bonniface area and enjoyed the beautiful ride down Main Street; but as I crossed Logan Ave out of the corner of my eye I saw a flash and before I had a chance to hit the brakes I hear the sound of a crunch and I remember rolling on the side of my vehicle and skidding down the pavement looking at it as it passed by my face (My window was open and I was inches from it). In the end both the nice man who hit me and I were able to walk away from the accident but now a month and a half latter I am still feeling a lot of pain from it. I can't help but think of how grateful I am to be fairly healthy and alive.

Since that morning I have turned 35 and celebrated the 4th birthday of my precious daughter and I'm reminded more and more every day how blessed I am. God has been so very good to me, and as I look back over the past year I can truly say in the words of Job of old "the Lord gives and the Lord takes away, Blessed be the name of the Lord."

As I reflect again on this year it has been an amazing blessing to meet many of my clients for the very first time and I can truly say that that has been a blessing. Someone was at the studio last week and said, "Wow, these women are all so beautiful!" My response was simple, All of my clients are beautiful!! It may seem to be a cliche but in fact I feel so blessed to have gotten to know each of you and I am truly thankful!!

Have a great Thanksgiving, you will be hearing from me again soon.

Rodney