From the bottom of my heart

	Bishop David Zubik

Within days, we celebrate once again a sacred tradition in our country begun by the pilgrims several hundred years ago - Thanksgiving Day. For most of us, turkey and stuffing, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie with more than a few other foods will grace our tables. Once again, football games, watching the Macy's Parade, and a good dose of card playing will bring family and friends together. And the unseen Guest in the midst of all that we do on Thanksgiving is the One who is the giver of every good gift - God Himself.

Thanksgiving

To be perfectly honest with you - this Thanksgiving will be far different than any other I've ever celebrated, and I know that will also be the case for some of you as well.

This Thanksgiving will be the first without my mom and for some of you it will be the first without someone you love much, too! For me, it will be different because I believe I've learned how to say "thank you" in a way I never really knew before.

Let me explain.

Just hours before my mom died, I had the chance to have one of those once in a lifetime chats. Dr. McGovern, my mom's physician, told me it wouldn't be long - so if there was anything I needed to tell my mom, the time was nigh!

First, I encouraged her to "let go and let God our Father, let Mary, our Mother, and let Porchy, your mom, open the gates of Heaven for you."

For the next hour, I shared a multiple litany of "thank you's."

• I thanked her for falling in love with my dad, for the life they both gave me and the faith they passed on to me.

• I thanked her for believing in me and for teaching me to believe in myself because that's what God wants of me.

• I thanked her for teaching me how to connect with God in prayer and to believe that He is always with me.

• I thanked her for teaching me how to study, but more importantly how to go after my dreams in life.

• I thanked her for supporting my dreams in life - from providing, with my dad, the opportunity to go to Catholic schools - to my responding "yes" to God's call that I become a priest.

• I thanked her for the times she was tough on me - really tough on me. (She always was the disciplinarian. In fact, her mother, whom I've introduced to you in the past as "Porchy" on more than one occasion, remarked that to her at times my mom treated me more like a stepchild.) Not really!

• I thanked her for the courage she taught by her example, many times in my growing up, but especially in the months leading to her new life.

• I thanked her for the good times we had together - going out to the movies and dinner; going to Disney World and shopping malls; engaging in spirited debates on our disagreements about politics or about the Church; and for those times when we could be together in absolute silence and not feel strange or like strangers to each other.

• I thanked her for accepting my becoming a bishop and for making the ultimate sacrifice with my dad of leaving home and friends, of leaving everything that was important to them for nearly 80 years to join me in my new home of the Church of Green Bay.

• There are so many other "thank you's" I treasured with my mom hours before she breathed her last breath, which I leave between my mom and me.

But one "thank you" I didn't share that night before she died is one for which I can now thank her. Over the course of the 10 months since my mother died, I have learned that through my conversation with her that night, I have learned - really learned - how to say thank you from the bottom of my heart.

This Thanksgiving, I will be thanking God for His blessings in my life in a way unlike I've ever done before. I'll be thanking God - for Him; for my mom and dad; for my aunt and friends and for you - my wonderful sisters and brothers of the Church of Green Bay. "Thanks from the bottom of my heart."

While I don't want to get "preachy" on you, I've shared my story, just in case you might need a nudge this Thanksgiving Day - a nudge to thank God; to thank your wife or husband; to thank your daughter or son; to thank your mom or dad; to thank your friend or someone who needs to hear you say - thank you "from the bottom of my heart."