Redding School District

I believe gratitude doesn’t come in the front door all dressed up and bearing holiday gifts and cheer but rather it slips in through the garage door like the plumber did when our water heater went out.   You do not know what gratitude is until you have the feeling of a warm shower running over your body after a week without one.  Real gratitude comes from a deep appreciation of how each story we are living could have ended differently and sometimes does.

When Mrs. Klein told her first graders to draw a picture of something for which they were thankful, she thought how little these children, who lived in a deteriorating neighborhood, actually had to be thankful for. She knew that most of the class would draw pictures of turkeys or of bountifully laden Thanksgiving tables. That was what they believed was expected of them.

What took Mrs. Klein aback was Douglas’s picture. Douglas was so forlorn and likely to be found close in her shadow as they went outside for recess. Douglas’s drawing was simply a hand.  The question was whose hand? The class was captivated by his image. “I think it must be the hand of God that brings us food,” said one student.

“A farmer,” said another, “because they grow the turkeys.”

“It looks more like a policeman, and they protect us.” “I think,” said Lavinia, who was always so serious, “that it is supposed to be all the hands that help us, but Douglas could only draw one of them.”

Mrs. Klein had almost forgotten Douglas in her pleasure at finding the class so responsive. When she had the others at work on another project, she bent over his desk and asked whose hand it was.

Douglas mumbled, “It’s yours, Teacher.”

Then Mrs. Klein recalled that she had taken Douglas by the hand from time to time; she often did that with the children. But that it should have meant so much to Douglas …

Perhaps, she reflected, this was her Thanksgiving, and everybody’s Thanksgiving—not the material things given unto us, but the small ways that we give something to others.

Reader’s Digest Editors Story

I wish all of you a truly thankful, loving time with your friends and family this coming Thanksgiving week.  This Thanksgiving, like every Thanksgiving, I will give thanks for all my blessings, which are some of the same things I am grateful for; family, friends, food, and health to name a few.  However, I will do so knowing that the many people whom we work with and some of those that are part of our closest friends and family have a simpler thankfulness of a daily loving touch, listening ear, or a warm hug.    I am thankful for my work family because I see these simple actions each day and I know you are making the difference in our children’s lives or in many cases, for each other.  Just as Mrs. Klein didn’t understand the impact she was having, we may never know the difference that we make each and every day as we give of ourselves to those around us.

Have a great week off and see you in December,

Rob