I have never gone hungry.
I have never gone without water, either for consumption or cleaning or cooking.
I have never had to seek safety in a bomb shelter or a safe room.
In my six decades, not once have I been treated differently due to my skin color.
I have never been tortured, intentionally humiliated, or cast out.
I never got picked last on the playground.
The poverty my father knew as a boy was never in my childhood home.
No physical deformity, no chronic pain, no congenital health issue. Never.
No threats or attacks have ever come my way because of my faith.
The horror of physical assault? Never. The pain of feeling and actually being unloved? Never.
The grief of a miscarriage? No. I have never forgotten the details of the days my daughters were born.
My parents never yelled at me or told me to shut up.
My parents never hit me. My parents never forgot my birthday or my favorite foods or my friends’ names.
I have never been truly alone. Because of good fortune, grace, guardian angels, prayer, fate, and the luck of the Irish I find myself giving thanks with a grateful heart for sixty-seven years of nevers.
May your Thanksgiving 2023 bring you joy.
Snyder, Texas, native Sue Jane Sullivan is a retired schoolteacher whose thoughtprovoking commentary appears occasionally in several West Texas newspapers, including The Texas Spur and The Caprock Courier.
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