Being Thankful

Elizabeth Zelvin

My family never called Thanksgiving Turkey Day, as many people do nowadays, but if it had ever been suggested, as we sat down to the annual feast, that we go around the table and say what each of us was thankful for, they would have been surprised and mildly embarrassed. This doesn’t mean my parents didn’t appreciate the many good things in their lives: health, prosperity, family, and more than their fair share of brains and longevity. But thanksgiving in the spiritual sense was not in their vocabulary.

It’s Thanksgiving Day, and I don’t know how many online readers will be checking blogs today. But it seems like a good opportunity to mention a few things that I’m thankful for this year.

First, since this is a mystery lovers’ blog, let me mention The Book. Death Will Get You Sober will be published by St. Martin’s Press on April 15, 2008. The date will also mark my sixty-fourth birthday. I first announced I wanted to be a writer at the age of seven. You do the math. How can I not be deeply, deeply thankful for the fulfillment of this long cherished and elusive dream?

I’m equally thankful for my two beautiful granddaughters. There’s a saying about the way to leave one’s mark upon the world: Write a book, have a child, plant a tree. I’m very thankful that I’ve had the opportunity to do all three. I wish we had a better world to offer our kids, but for the moment, the ones with some of my genes are healthy and happy and getting plenty of love.

From the many additional items on my list, let me pick just one: that exasperating marvel of 21st century technology, the Internet. It’s given me quick access to friends all over the world, including my blog sisters on Poe’s Deadly Daughters and a huge support community of writers and mystery lovers. It puts whatever information I need at any given moment at my fingertips. It’s given me the ability to help people in need and make a living doing it, in my other “hat” as an online therapist. And as my family would be glad to tell you, that this right-brained anything-but-a-techie has managed to learn to use a computer at all is a miracle for which I am indeed thankful.