A family reflects on the meaning of the season

Thanksgiving -- that all-American holiday that has everything to do with the human spirit yet nothing to do with the religion to which you subscribe -- is just around the corner.

It's the ultimate "glass half full" day, the time of year where most people seem to stop to pause and reflect and add up the blessings of their lives. To me it's always been the kind of day where, hopefully, you're able to say, "well, it could be worse."

The fact of the matter is, many people face many, many challenges in their lives: life-threatening illness, perhaps; overwhelming medical bills; issues with children or perhaps aging parents or both. Perhaps money isn't just tight, but nonexistent, and a source of crushing concern. Perhaps the worries that nag at people in the middle of the night are those that eat at others 24 hours a day. What then?

I asked one family about the blessings amid the challenges.

Diane Wilson of Geneva is caring around the clock for her 87-year-old mother. She has the help of her beloved daughter, Patti, of Sycamore, as well as a nurse who comes in weekly and another helper who comes in twice a week to help with personal care.

"That's taken a little bit of the burden off of us," Diane Wilson said.

Her life today is not what she thought it would be two years ago. Back in March 2006, her mother came to live with her. At the time she was dehydrated, had shingles and some other medical issues, and her doctor said she could no longer live alone. Now Wilson's life revolves around the constant care her mother, who also is suffering from dementia -- though she knows her daughter and granddaughter -- requires.

"My retirement went pfft! down the drain," said Wilson. "I thought I'd meet my daughter once a week and have lunch," she said, of leisure-time possibilities. "It isn't what I thought it would be."

Wilson has health issues of her own, as a result of falls from her porch in 2000 and again this past summer. She now walks with a cane and, as she puts it, "I don't do the basement stairs anymore." With laundry facilities in the basement, Wilson's own daughter Patti now handles the laundry.

Patti Wilson, meanwhile, has her own job, her own house in Sycamore. What are her challenges? "Trying to work every day as well as help out my mom in helping take care of my grandma," she said.

She comes over every day, and does the errands, the shopping, the running. There are benefits and bright sides. Patti is able to drop her dogs off at her mom's house every morning, so the dogs have company all day long. She enjoys dinner with her mom and grandmother every day, a meal she does not have to prepare.

The Wilson trio loves baseball, enjoying their outings to see the Kane County Cougars play. In fact, they've been season ticket holders since 1991, with front-row seats along the first-base line.

"Her short-term memory is gone," Diane Wilson said of her mother. "But when we take her out to the ballpark, her eyes light up; she wants to sing the ("Take Me Out to the Ball Game") song. That's the one thing she has hung onto throughout the whole disease. That's the one thing she's excited about." And Wilson is very grateful for the care Cougars workers display to her mother, and the way they watch out for her.

With a life not what she thought it would be, with the challenges of being a 24-hour caregiver, what is Diane Wilson thankful for?

"To tell you the truth, what I'm thankful for is Alzheimer's," she said. "We used to laugh about it: where are my car keys? Where are my glasses?

"But it's not a joke. They (those suffering from Alzheimer's) don't realize how much they're actually suffering." And that's a blessing, she said.

There's also another upside. "The Lord is teaching me patience in dealing with my mother," Diane said. "He's giving us this togetherness that we wouldn't have had otherwise. I'm grateful for her disease. It's teaching me compassion, understanding, gratefulness."

It goes without saying she counts her daughter as a blessing in her life. "She was the best thing I got out of my marriage," she joked, adding on a more serious note, "I'd be lost without her."

Patti Wilson, too, acknowledged, when I pressed, that her life is not the one she envisioned. "Oh well, someday," she said, philosophically.

She is thankful particularly for her mother's neighbors, who provide a great support system and who fill in when needed. When her mother fell several weeks ago, Patti had to take her to the emergency room. Neighbors, as well as a hospice volunteer, filled in and cared for her grandmother.

"They're our support group," Patti said of the "guy" neighbors. "They cut the grass and make us laugh. They bring cookies over. It's the outside world coming in, and that's important.

"They carry the 50-pound bags of bird seed, so I don't have to, and so Grandma can still watch the birds."

Anything else she's grateful for? And that's the beauty of Thanksgiving. It takes in blessings large and small. That was evidenced by Patti's final answer to my final inquiry as to whether there was anything else for which she was thankful.

"Just the pretty fall coloring," she said, on a day with brilliant orange, yellow and red leaves highlighted by a bright, late-fall sun. "And nature."

'Tis the season -- and I don't mean Christmas. No, 'tis the season to count your blessings, one and all. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.