We woke at the thud, panicked.

My wife and I had been dozing in bed, squeezing the last seconds of sleep out of our pillows before the inevitable onslaught of little people. It’s something of a delicious defeat when you hear the door creak open and steps on the carpet. You know you’re trading something so precious to you (sleep) for someone so precious, who you just wish would be precious elsewhere. But then they’re all warm and soft and tousle-headed and snuggly and saying things like “daddy, can we have special cereal?” and poking their knees into your side and sitting on your face with a full diaper and sticking cold toes into your armpits.

This morning they didn’t get to do all those precious, horrible things to us because we woke up to the sound of something thwacking against our window. After shaking off the confusion (no, it’s not a child on the roof; they can’t reach the window), I recalled why I knew the sound. It was a bird. And from the sound, a pretty sizable one.

I said as much to my wife, as I tried to open my eyes but managed only a half-squint. She half-muttered sympathy, as if she cared deeply inside but couldn’t get past the early morning fog. I added that since it was a big bird, it probably got away a little dazed, no harm done. I tried to find her to give her a reassuring pat, but I was too drowsy and missed completely. I also couldn’t pry my eyelids open still; they ached a little, as if I hadn’t used them for a week instead of approximately six hours.

I’ve read that birds, reptiles, and some mammals have something called a nictitating membrane, a third eyelid that acts as a translucent shield when they are diving or flying. They can draw it horizontally across each eye to moisten and protect it. For instance, many birds use it when they are regurgitating food for their kids so they don’t get their eyes poked out by little beaks.

I think of things like this when I’m abruptly disturbed from sleep. Things like this, and demonic children’s songs that will not be exorcised for hours.

We turned over and buried ourselves in the blankets for three more minutes before the precious, horrible people came and got us.

Nadia was playing hopscotch out on the sidewalk later in the morning when she found the bird. Robins are always the first birds my children encounter and remember. It was easy for her to name the body she stumbled upon, one story below our window, and quite dead. We had a little flurry of don’t-touch-that’s and daddy-is-it-going-to-be-okay’s, and I managed to deposit it into a small terrarium for them to look at. Animals can die of diseases communicable to humans, but this one died upon impact, and it was still warm. So the kids and I examined it carefully.

It was larger than any bird I’d seen this close. The wings were tucked in beside its impossibly light body. Many of its bones were hollow, for ease of flight. The neck was at a weird angle, a wrong angle. The death in front of me was at a wrong angle. It always has been, but it just felt much more wrong suddenly, because it was also in front of my children. Blood speckled its beak, a dark decoration above the warm red tinges on its chest.

I realized that it was a young one, probably a teenager in robin years. Its feathers were perfect, straight and sleek, pinions just slightly larger and smaller on each side, forming beautiful strong wings. And the roses on the sides under the wings were just barely forming up into a speckled breast. It was about the size of an adult but without the experience, which is why it probably hit our window.

One eye was slightly open and looking like black jelly, like it would spill out of the socket as liquid if you tipped the bird over slightly. The other eye was closed. This teenage robin had eyelashes on the under-lid. It had whiskers. Its feet were curled and delicate.

It was too beautiful. It was too sad.

Nadia was watching me. She told me she was sorry that it died because she could see the sadness in my eyes; but I wasn’t really mourning after the bird. We touched its wings, feeling its perfect form beneath our fingers: the surreal softness, the preciousness of a young fleeting life snuffed out. Not a sparrow falls but that He sees it. God saw this.

Woodpeckers will close their nictitating membrane, then tighten it a millisecond before they hit the tree so that their eyeballs don’t fall out on impact. Perhaps we need similar shields.

Only a few days earlier we had discovered a young robin hopping around the pine tree down in the yard. We took pictures. The kids enjoyed watching it hop around. There was a hawk above, circling around, and I like to think we saved that little robin’s life. There was a little one then, alive and bouncing, and then a bigger one, dead and stiff.

God saw this.

What is it about seeing that is comforting? Wouldn’t catching the sparrow be more comforting? Wouldn’t solving the problem, ending the great horror – death – wouldn’t this be a more lasting comfort? You see me, God. You see my children. But if you were to let them fall…

Sharks close their third eyelid when they attack. This way they can see their victims without getting blood in their eyes.

Kai got out of the house when he was only one year old. We noticed when it was too quiet. He had slipped out the screen door moments after I arrived home from work, and neither Linnea nor I had seen him. I locked the door. It was five minutes before we noticed he was gone, and in those five minutes he was down the outer stairs of the apartment building and toddling along the street.

The terror in my heart: I was running down the sidewalk in my dress slacks, socks, and undershirt, desperately looking for my son, expecting to see him lying in the street, expecting to be one of those parents we pray for, expecting to live with the knowledge that we didn’t see him, we didn’t see him, and then it was too late to see him…

He liked stairs, so he had kept to the house side of the sidewalk, and a kind and observant couple had pulled over and were with him four houses down when I ran up. The man was on the phone with the police, and I heard him say, “Oh never mind, it’s okay. The father’s here.” I thanked them, breathless, and held my son, and held him walking back, and held him up the stairs, and held him for another hour until he didn’t want to be held anymore, promising him I would see him, always, I would see him.

God saw this. How can I say it differently, to ease the pain? God sees… me?

If we mourn this way, how must God mourn at all He sees, at all the flickering lights snuffed out, the bruised reeds broken, the sheep silent before the shearer? Death is nothing new to Him, and in fact, He knows it as an old friend, an old foe, better than us all.

Today, this day, my children are alive and real, perfect in form and surreally soft. They are the preciousness of young life, fleeting, and my God sees them. Lest you think me morbid, think on why this is precious, why as a parent, as a child, as a human I am determined to cherish this thing we call life, why I must defend it for those I love, why death is such an aberration and a destiny and a defeated foe. The thought of death is morbid, maybe, but so is the thought of life without the thought of death. For now, we need both. And God sees us, in both.

God sees us.

Peregrine falcons see too, because as they dive at over 200 miles per hour, they blink their nictitating membranes repeatedly to clear away the debris and clean each eye.

In the midst of holding onto my family’s break-neck life, I find that I am unable to bring myself to accept such a thing as death, and yet… I know that it’s what I must do, for we will all encounter it, sooner or later. This dark thing I wish to dismiss by forgetting, or fighting, or examining on the operating table of a small terrarium: Death will come for us all.  I know, in my spirit, it is good – a gift given so that our difficult, fallen lives will not last forever, but it will never lose its dread, even when it has lost its sting. And perhaps I will embrace it as a friend when more years have passed beneath my feet, or perhaps I will embrace my Savior, and He will carry me through it into the place where it cannot enter.

And my heart holds its breath for all the times I must try to prepare my children for that moment – the one I feel certain I will never be fully prepared for, the one that God sees. I know I am actually only trying to prepare myself. I know it is not up to me, and I wish I could take more comfort in that. Perhaps someday I will. Every day is another reminder that I am not in control, and death is the great Out-of-My-Control.

But I know this. Each day that I walk in the sight of God, He will train my eyes, and my sight can be strengthened by seeing life and knowing it itself is but a shadow of the life to come.

Nadia, my little avian maven, knows that birds need nests. So she settles herself in a patch of fragrant clover and picks flowers as a pillow for the bird. She is kneeling in her pink flowered dress, a lily ringed with gingham, examining the ground and plucking appropriate stems carefully, precisely, preparing for burial. Perhaps, preparing for flight.

And I blink back a tear.

In the US, Thanksgiving was declared an annual national holiday in 1863, however, its actual origin traces back to harvest festivals that were held by many ancient civilizations. The autumn festival, Thesmosphoria of the Greeks, the harvest festival, Cerelia of the Romans, the full moon harvest festival, Chung Ch’ui of the Chinese, Sukkoth of the Jews and the spring harvest festival of the ancient Egyptians are just some examples. Europeans also used to celebrate a good year at the end of the harvesting in fall, long before the establishment of colonial New England. Aside from the harvest festivals that are observed in many parts of the world, today’s Thanksgiving has roots in the Thanksgiving holidays of the English Puritans. In times of crisis or after a period of misfortune, Puritans would designate special days to thank God and to express gratitude for God’s blessings. These serious religious occasions were distinct from the harvest festivals and were not held regularly.

Puritans, or Separatists, were members of a religious movement that broke from the Church of England in the 16th century in order to reform the church and to establish a middle course between Roman Catholicism and the Protestant reformers’ ideas. In the early 17th century, a group of Separatists escaping religious persecution in England immigrated to America in 1620. After a difficult journey on the famous Mayflower, they reached the coast of America near present-day Provincetown, Massachusetts and founded the Plymouth Colony. Shortly after their arrival, the selected governor of the colony signed a treaty of mutual peace with the chief of the Native American tribe, the Wampanoag, so that they could co-exist in the region. Almost all of the immigrants, or Pilgrims, became ill, and half of them died due to the harsh winter and starvation. In the spring of 1621, the Native Americans taught them how to raise corn in this new land, how to catch fish and how to tap maple trees for their syrup. In the fall, the Pilgrims had an abundant harvest and stored enough food to sustain them through the next winter. They invited the members of the Wampanoag tribe to their celebration. Although this event is considered the first American Thanksgiving, there is no evidence that the Pilgrims thought of the feast as a thanksgiving. They were devoutly religious people and a day of thanksgiving would involve fasting and prayer.

Two years after the first American Thanksgiving celebration was held in 1621 in the Plymouth Colony, the Pilgrims observed a day of fasting and prayer due to drought. When the rains came during their prayers, the day turned into a Thanksgiving day. Gradually, they started to celebrate Thanksgiving after the harvest annually.

As the Thanksgiving celebrations in New England spread into other states, colonial governments designated Thanksgiving days to commemorate various public events. During the American Revolution, following the American victory at the Battle of Saratoga in 1777, the Continental Congress proclaimed a national day of Thanksgiving. Later on, in 1789, after the promulgation of the U.S. constitution, the President, George Washington, proclaimed another day of Thanksgiving.

New York State became the first state to observe Thanksgiving annually, with many others following. At this time, Thanksgiving celebrations were still not being held on the same day; generally they were held sometime in November. In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln appointed the last Thursday in November as Thanksgiving day. This took place during the American Civil War. When Congress established Thanksgiving as a national holiday after the war, Southerners saw Thanksgiving as a Northern custom imposed on them. However, in the late 19th century, Thanksgiving became a widespread national observance, as Thanksgiving’s emphasis on home and family appealed to all people throughout the United States. Later immigrants also appreciated Thanksgiving as a distinctly American holiday and saw it as an introduction to American values.

In the 20th century, as materialistic ideas dominated most value systems, Thanksgiving also took its share. The day following Thanksgiving was accepted as the start of the Christmas shopping season. Large retailers began to sponsor parades decorated richly with huge balloons to attract customers. Retail merchants even petitioned President Roosevelt in 1939 to change Thanksgiving day to one week earlier in order to allow for an extra week of shopping between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The change brought about great opposition from fellow Americans, as well as from opponents in Congress. In 1941, the president had to change the date back to the fourth Thursday of November.

Customarily, US presidents address the nation on Thanksgiving Day in an effort to gain public support for current government policies. It would be amiss not to mention football here as an American Thanksgiving tradition, as many people enjoy their evening watching the Rose Bowl.

Today’s Thanksgiving is about sharing food, family, friends and love. Family members come together at a table loaded with many tasty blessings from God. Classical Thanksgiving menus include turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, squash, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie, food that is plentiful during the harvest season. As more people immigrated to North America, they brought their traditional food to the Thanksgiving tables. Preparing and eating a large meal is a central part of Thanksgiving, in a way contrary to the spirit of the early Pilgrims, who fasted to express their thankfulness to God. The memory of the Pilgrims still survives though, in the parades of children dressed up in Pilgrim costume, with their tall hats or bonnets and shoes with large silver buckles and in the images of baskets overflowing with fruits and vegetables, that reminds one of the old autumn harvest celebrations. At the Thanksgiving table people usually express their thanks for their family, children, their good health and their well being. Children on the other hand are often not sure what to be thankful for, or they may just be thankful that there is no school on Thanksgiving Day.

Thanksgiving is not just a celebration once a year. It is an act that expresses our gratitude for any gift or blessing from God. Thanksgiving as a holiday may be seen as an American institution, but it is something that belongs to many cultures and religions.

Thanksgiving in Islam

In Islam, thanksgiving is the most important pillar of being a good worshipper and a beloved servant of God. Many verses in the Qur’an express the importance of thanksgiving. Remember Me then and I will remember you. Give thanks to Me and do not be ungrateful. (2:152). If you disbelieve, God does not need you, although He does not approve disbelief in His servants. However, if you give thanks, He will approve that in you. No sinning soul shall bear the burden of another. Then unto your Lord is your return and He will tell you what you used to do. He knows the secrets within the breasts. (39:7)

Many other verses emphasize that what the Creator requests most of His servants is thanksgiving. We have indeed created man from a mixed sperm to test him; and so We made him capable of hearing and sight. We have guided him upon the path, either as thankful or thankless. (76:2-3)

It was out of His mercy that He created the day and the night, so that you may rest in it and to seek some of His bounty, that perchance you may give thanks. (28:73)

Also in Sura al-Rahman (55), it is asked repeatedly: So, which of your Lord’s bounties do you deny? The bounties, such as fruits with different aromas and flavors, are invitations from God for thanksgiving. In this respect, thanksgiving is the appreciation of the providence coming from God, and respect for it. It is an expression of our acceptance of God as the Provider and Sustainer of our presence, rather than crediting our own efforts or mere chance. Thanksgiving is the connection of the worshipper with the name All-Merciful, one of the ninety nine beautiful names of God.

Signs of thanksgiving are contentment, thrift, consent and gratitude, while those of unthankfulness are greed, waste, ingratitude and consumption without discriminating between the lawful and unlawful. There are many kinds of thanksgiving, the most comprehensive of which is the daily prescribed prayers. As it is stated in a hadith;* The Prophet used to pray so much that his feet used to become edematous or swollen, and when he was asked as to why he prays so much, he would say, ˜Shall I not be a thankful servant (to God)?’

Thanksgiving can be an oral or physical act. Saying Al-hamdulillah (praise be to God) in response to a blessing we have appreciated is a kind of thanksgiving. Using our hands, eyes, time and wealth in accordance with God’s will is also thanksgiving. God had already given you victory at Badr, at a time when you were still powerless; so fear God that perchance you might be thankful. (3:123)

Other prophets were also ordered to be thankful for God’s blessings. give thanks, O family of David! And very few of My servants are grateful. (34:13) Indeed, Abraham was a model (of virtue), obedient to God and upright; and he was not one of the polytheists. (He was) thankful for His blessings, and God chose and guided him to a straight path. And We gave him good in this world, and he will be, in the Hereafter, in the ranks of the Righteous. (16:120-122)

Then he (Solomon) smiled, laughing at its words, and said: Lord, inspire me to be thankful for Your blessing, with which You have blessed me and my parents, and to do the right pleasing to You. Admit me, by Your Mercy, into the company of Your righteous servants. (27:19)

One can also realize the importance of thanksgiving from the supplications of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), who desired nothing more than to be a thankful servant of God.

Islamic teachings define human beings as the best of creation. Only through thanksgiving can people attain this highest of ranks, otherwise they will fall to the lowest of the low. In a sense, a Muslim should observe each day of his/her life as a thanksgiving day.

References

• Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2003
• William Bradford by Dorothy Honiss Kelso, www.pilgrimhall.org/bradfordwilliam.htm
• Glorious Qur’an
• The Duty of Thanksgiving, http://www.herkul.org/spring/duty.htm
• (*) Sahih Bukhari, Volume 8, Book 76, Number 478: Narrated by Al-Mughira bin Shu’ba