Constable: Kids grow up, but joys and thanks remain a constant
My wife, Cheryl, and I became parents on a very happy and emotional Thanksgiving afternoon in 1995. As I have for every Thanksgiving since, I ask for your indulgence as we dish out another helping of thankful moments from the past year for us and our sons, Ross, Ben and Will.
We are thankful for:
• Having three sons from three time zones find a way to be home together in time for today's holiday.
• Surviving one year of paying three college tuitions.
• Weddings of relatives and friends that take us to New York City, Maine and Austin, Texas.
• Ben's learning enough Arabic to curb wiseguys who make comments about his girlfriend during their vacation in Morocco.
• The opportunity for a 2,121-mile, father-son road trip with Ross and his car full of film equipment, even though it meant leaving Los Angeles on a Friday morning and arriving home in the suburbs on Saturday night.
• The passion that drives Will to spend 10 days at the Dhamma Pakasa Vipassana Meditation Center in Pecatonica, near Rockford, where he doesn't talk or communicate with others for nine of those days. And for the way Will relays that experience to his mom and me all the way home.
• The way Ben, who recently discovered the value of running, wins his age group in the Hemingway 8K Running of the Bulls race, and for the medallion showing Harry Houdini wrapped in chains that he earned for finishing the Appleton Houdini 10K.
• The way Ross organized funding and production of his film project, "Turbine Angel," on our family farm in Indiana, and for the grace that 91-year-old Grandma Lois showed in becoming an actress and letting her home be turned into a movie set.
• The way Will's commitment to veganism has gotten my wife to try almond milk, pea protein milk and soy milk in her coffee as we all try to eat healthier.
• The way my beautiful wife juggles tuition payments, travel schedules, a career, kids, parents and a husband, and is thankful to not be the Thanksgiving hostess for the first time in decades.
• The way Grandpa Paul marked his recovery from a nearly fatal infection by vacationing in the Philippines with his caretaker, Alma.
• The way all three boys remember their Grandpa Willy, Grandma Jean and Uncle Bill, with stories of humor, kindness and fun.
• The way my online search for our son "Wilson Constable" and "Earlham College" turns up old football and basketball box scores featuring Grandpa Willy when his Franklin Grizzlies took on the Earlham Quakers in the 1930s.
• The way Ross's official graduation ceremony at the California Institute of the Arts featured walk-up music for each graduate, students dressed as babies, lobsters and Pokemon characters, one naked guy, and Ross in a sharp-looking sports jacket.
• The way Ben passionately employs magnets, electronic resistors, lasers and lots of color-coded circuit wires for his senior project at Lawrence University and patiently explains what his contraption does.
• How we overcame the loss of our majestic mulberry tree by cherishing memories of our boys in the branches and covering that bare spot with a new maple, red bud and hornbeam.
• Debates about life and death, morality and free will, political correctness and free speech with our philosopher (Will), our physicist (Ben) and our filmmaker (Ross).
• Ben's renewed love for the oboe, Will's rediscovery of the saxophone, and whatever shows up on the undeveloped 35 mm travel film Ross recently unearthed among his equipment.
• The way that everybody is planning to be together at Christmas.
As our family celebrates today, we hope you and yours can compose a similar list for which to give thanks.