Coming up with words to describe how thankful I am for having one more, and hopefully many more, Thanksgiving with my middle child is difficult.  What does come easy is recognizing that I need to be thankful for the lessons that I have learned these past 8 months.  I have learned that being a Christian is very hard.  Releasing all hopes and dreams to God during Luke’s sudden illness and liver transplant seem easy now after experiencing what life is like for our family post-transplant.  Being back around familiar settings makes me realize that new goals have to be set.  That I must accept that only God knows what my plan is.  I struggle with this daily as I like to know the direction that my life will go.  I have also learned to allow myself and my family to be recipients of the gifts that others have given us.  Our family have always been the givers.  Luke’s transplant made us learn that we needed allow others to be the givers.  The three “T’s”(time, talent, and treasure) were always taught in my house growing up.  My parents taught me that at different times of your life you be rich in different ways.  At this point in my life I am blessed with time to raise my three children and share my talents with community.  Lastly, I have learned that the gift of life shouldn’t be taken for granted.  When my son was almost taken from me, it was heart wrenching.  Getting the call that Luke would be the recipient of another child’s organ we were filled with joy.  Our hearts were still heavy because this joy was made possible because a young child had died.  On this Thanksgiving I want thank the donor family for being a part of saving Luke’s life. 

On this Thanksgiving what are you blessed with?  With much love, thanks and gratitude ~Tara (Luke’s mother)