Being thankful for what has been given and well-received….
Our lives before graduation represented an era laced with enthusiasm and education, building temperament, being molded to earn our places within the local neighborhood, and for those who desired to make more distant footprints, national and international communities welcomed them.
We are thankful for those who chose to be our educators, benefactors, and mentors as without them our lives would have taken different paths.
As fate has placed us, we embody a time woven with untold individual joys and sorrows, which is who we are.
We are thankful our parents were watching with approval, although sometimes with dismay, offering advice when the opportunity was at hand, doing so without indignation from our grown-up posturing. Making first choices that would collide with tradition these past fifty-plus years, we all were well-received, some with impact, some not at all with little to no fanfare as we embraced the love of family as our only tribute for our burdens, but all were well- received.
We are thankful to have passed our enthusiasms and grit to our family as our parents did and, now being satisfied with our achievements-- or at least we should be at our time of life-- we are content with ourselves as we continue to contribute to society.
Now as we look at our children and grandchildren, we are thankful as we watch them press onward with what we have taught them, what higher education and life experience has given them, and what has come instinctively to them.
We give thanks as we reflect, Looking forward with expectation,
Being thankful for what has been given and well-received.