Happy Thanksgiving, TSF Readers!

I'm so grateful for all of you!

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Well, it’s Thanksgiving.

I’m not going to pretend that today is easy.

First time in 24 years I’m having Thanksgiving apart from my girl and my kids.

In fact, I wasn’t even asked. Not a single inquiry into what I was doing, or if I was doing OK. This is the status quo now. My job, difficult as it is, is to learn to accept it.

I’m going through it. There’s no other path.

But as hard as it is, I am grateful.

I am grateful for all of you, who’ve supported me, prayed for me, reached out to me with personal messages, and made it financially feasible for me to survive this.

I was doing a lot better on the road, where every day was a combination of driving and figuring out logistics.

This, now, is the slow part.

The part where I have to face the demons.

But all of you have helped keep me going. You’ve given me a mission and a purpose. My writing, which has helped me to process a lot of this, might never have happened if there was nobody to read it.

So thank you!

I would also like to thank my beautiful children, who are doing their best to get through this. I know it’s hard.

Thank you to Fr. Joseph Krupp, who has made me a part of his family, and with whom I am sharing my day today.

Thank you to Fr. Michael in Chicago, who gave me shelter for as long as I needed it, and told me again and again, “You’re going to get through this. I just know it.”

Thank you to Kale Zelden, who brought me into his home when I first got started.

Thank you to my old friends Paul, Hugh, and Joe, and Maureen, who also took me in along the way.

Thank you to all of you who offered me a place to stay, even if it didn’t work out.

All of you have helped me to feel seen, loved, appreciated, and wanted, at a time when my internal narrative was screaming about abandonment and rejection.

If I manage to come out the other side of this stronger, you all will have played a big role in that.

So I am grateful for you. I hope that if you have family you get to spend today with, you cherish them, because you just never know.

And if you don’t have family to spend today with, I join you in solidarity and sorrow.

I know that blessings abound, even when they’re hardest to see and feel.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!