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Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsHappy Thanksgiving to my DU family!
I wasn't looking forward to Thanksgiving this year after my sweetie died unexpectedly in April, but one of Rick's sisters invited me to her house today. I'm actually looking forward to it. Rick didn't have that close of a relationship with them, but there was no animosity, just different lifestyles. At least none of them are republicans, lol. I've gotten together with his three sisters a couple of times since Rick's death and have had a good time, so today should be nice. Rick left everything to me, but I had them go to Rick's house to take whatever they wanted. They took the family photos and a few small items, but they weren't vultures. They've been wonderful to me. Two of his three sisters will be there today. The third fell a couple of weeks ago and broke her leg in 4 places. She's currently in rehab so she won't be able to join us.
As I stated earlier, Rick left everything he owned to me which includes a substantial amount of money in a 401K. I'm going to surprise Rick's sisters by giving them each a check out of it today. I feel funny about keeping everything and I know that they could use the extra money, especially this time of year.
Well, I wish all of you a very Happy Thanksgiving and I hope that you have a wonderful day, be it with friends, family, or alone. I love you all!
Siwsan
(26,315 posts)Last years was the first time I did anything, for the holidays, after losing my sister, mom and aunt in 2015. My niece ORDERED me to fly down to Florida, to spend Thanksgiving with her and her new husband and then they flew back here, for Christmas. It was the best thing, for me.
Now they have moved back to Michigan, and it's been made clear that I have no option to 'opt out' of any more holidays. I'm not much of a Christmas person. Ok, I'm not at ALL a fan of Christmas, but I am a fan of family and good food, so I guess holidays are going to be back on my schedule.
Enjoy the day!!
TruckFump
(5,812 posts)I am so glad you and Rick's family have a good relationship. It's very hard to lose someone you love and having others with you who also loved the same person -- it helps.
MaryMagdaline
(6,858 posts)Lefta Dissenter
(6,623 posts)You probably dont realize how many people you touch, amuse and inspire through your posts here on DU. I always look forward to your posts, and when Im discouraged with the whole mess weve made of our country, I look for one of your uplifting critter stories to wrap up my day on a positive note.
And because of that, I am thankful for you, catbyte.
Lady Freedom Returns
(14,120 posts)femmedem
(8,209 posts)Having suddenly lost a fiancé many years ago, I feel for you this holiday season. But I do believe that not only will your kindness help his sisters, but it's probably the best way to ease some of your sadness.
And thank you for sharing your plans. It made me think of this article in The Atlantic about kindness being contagious. Your story might ripple in ways you never know.
"...Kindness and its cousinsaltruism, generosity, and so onhas societal effects as well. Fesslers research has indicated that kindness is contagious. In one major forthcoming study, he and his colleagues showed some people a video of a person helping his neighbors, while others were shown a video of a person doing parkour. All the study participants were then given some money in return for taking part, and told they could put as much as they wanted in an envelope for charity. (The researchers could not see whether the participants put money in or how much they put in.)
People who saw the neighborly video were much more generous. One of my research assistants said: Theres something wrong with our accounting; somethings going haywire, Fessler told me. She said, Well, some of these envelopes have more than $5 in them. People who saw the first video were taking money out of their own wallets to give to charity, they figured. I said, Thats not something going wrong! Thats the experiment going right! It suggests that families or even whole communities could pitch themselves into a kind of virtuous cycle of generosity and do-gooding, and that people could be prompted to do good for their communities even with no expectation of their kind acts redounding to their own benefit.
Interpersonal empathy might translate into political change, Hunt added. We see this [research] as being civically very important, he said. Take homelessness in L.A., for example. How do we get the electorate to become more empathetic and support policies necessary to make a meaningful intervention? Thats not something you can just do by fiat. People have to be brought along.
This holiday season, there are so many ways to bring yourself and your community alongamong them little things like taking five minutes to meditate, calling your mother, and paying for someone elses coffee. Maybe kindness is not a distraction from or orthogonal to change. Maybe it is a pathway to it."
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/how-be-kind/602488/
More:
safeinOhio
(32,746 posts)Your post are very uplifting and I look forward to them. Thank You.