November - 30 Days of Thanksgiving: Day 19 - Work

I'm thankful that my husband is working.

We get to have my mother in law here for Thanksgiving this year.  We're really excited about that!  Usually we go out to her house, but now that we're so far away we expected it would just be us here this time.  We were surprised and excited to find out she was coming!  I'll undoubtedly post about how to have a holiday meal and a guest staying over in a tiny home after this is all finished.  It's sure to be an adventure!

Anyway, Allen has to pick her up from the airport in just a few hours, at about 1:00 am or so, and bring her back here, then in just a few more hours he has to take off for work.  He had requested the 22nd - 25th off of work so we could all visit.  He has already had several unexpected days off and we thought he was going to be off straight through until after Thanksgiving now. It was shaping up that way, but the dispatcher called him and asked him to drive.  No problem.  He hadn't asked for today or tomorrow, so he went to bed to try to get a good nap in before he had to do all this.  About two hours into the nap the dispatcher calls again: change of plans. He's off.  Well, the nap would do him some good since he has to go to the airport tonight, so, no harm no fowl.  Now he's nice and rested and wide awake....

"Ring!"

Change of plans.  Looks like he's working after all.  Try to go back to sleep, Allen.

This job has some of the weirdest, most unpredictable hours of any job I've ever heard of.  If this were an isolated instance I guess it would be one thing, but that's not the case.  Usually, commonly, it's much worse.  This one little instance wouldn't have bothered me at all, because he has been home a few days and he's nice and rested.  He's ready for it now, but that's rarely the case.  Some days he goes on little or no sleep at all, often for days on end.  Truck stop food or canned soup cold from the can, no showers and sometimes no contact with anyone: he puts one foot in front of the other almost in a stupor, sometimes.  He get s so exhausted.    Other days he sits and waits by the phone.  Sometimes he's miles and miles away sitting and waiting.

Most days we do fine with it; just grin and bear it.  Other days, like the night we are going to pick up his mother from the airport so we can have her here for our first Thanksgiving away from our friends and family and all our familiar things, and her first Thanksgiving without her husband of over fifty-one years -- I have to really remind myself that the way things are these days, we are blessed that he is working at all.  Thank you, Jesus.  I won't let my mind go there anymore.

We are so blessed to be having her here.  We'll enjoy every minute of our time.  To get all agitated because his boss called him in is ridiculous.  He's working!  We could be among the ranks of the unemployed or the underemployed, watching our lives spiraling out of control or maybe circling the drain for the last time.  My husband waits by the phone in case they call him in.   So many are waiting by the phone hoping that someone will call them about any work at all.  Here, at the onset of the holiday season, it would be especially tough to be in that shape.

Also, I think of our troops overseas.  They don't get regular meals or showers.  They are uncomfortable, tired, out of contact with the world at home, waiting.

I'll remember them all before I complain.  I'll remember them and their situation on Thanksgiving and Christmas.

God, show me where and how to be a blessing and a witness to someone this year for Thanksgiving and Christmas.


(photo credit)