By Mark Harvey

Thanksgiving is five days away.

It’s an interesting day, with all of the commercial images that are thrust upon us, from seemingly happy Pilgrims in funny clothes gorging themselves, to the Waltons gorging themselves, to the paintings that were on the covers of the Saturday Evening Post. But the theme is often the same: family and friends gathered about some manner of table, gorging themselves… because if there’s anything that will make us grateful quickly, it’s food!

The more food, the more gratitude. So, by the end of the day, we’re so grateful we’re comatose — and already worrying about diets, which do not make us grateful.

So … it’s an interesting day, but I have no intention of going on about obesity here. Gratitude is where we find it.

And, indeed, on Thanksgiving there are families plus friends plus neighbors plus spouses plus significant others plus kids (who are already making kids), and dogs and whomever else celebrating and enjoying a lovely time with a lot of food — good for you! Enjoy! Any respite from the grief and worry of the “real world” is welcomed and deserved — and so has it always been.

And I’m not going to go on about all of the tragedy and poverty and horror and hunger and loneliness in the world — or next door. You know that as well as I do, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy yourself and the people you love. So let’s not worry about the bad guys or the good guys on this day — tomorrow, despite our best efforts, will be here soon enough.

So, for just a couple more minutes, I want to talk to people who are taking care of somebody who needs to be taken care of, whether they like it or not — “caregivers,” if we need a label — because I know what Thanksgiving Day is.

So do you.

It’s a day that you get to do even more! Oh … goody.

It’s a day when, on top of everything else you were already doing just to get him or her or them (and yourself) through the day — any day! — you get to do even more. You get to do something that will make it feel like Thanksgiving, whatever that may be.

Even if you’re taking care of someone who has no idea where they are, who they are or who you are, it just seems like you should.

Even if you’re not really all that crazy about whoever it is you’re taking care of, and maybe never were, or barely even recognize them or aren’t really doing this whole “caregiving thing” out of some deep love or commitment, it just seems like you should.

And even if you’ve already figured out that trying to do anything on top of just getting him, her and yourself through the day in more or less one piece is so past stupid that you’ve been very carefully pretending that today is just another “day in the neighborhood,” it just seems like you should — and you also know (just as well as I do) that before the day is over, you probably will.

It doesn’t matter what you try to do, whether it’s cook a special meal or have family over or try to take him or her somewhere else, or just nuke a Cornish game hen and watch “The Wizard of Oz” (again) — whatever it is, it’s going to mean you have to do more.

Like you weren’t doing enough. Oh … goody.

Maybe we do this out of love, or duty, or honor, or to “pay back” — or just by default. Maybe there is no one else.

Maybe being able to take care of him or her is the most wonderful gift we’ve ever been given! Or maybe it’s not. Maybe it feels like a … sentence.

Maybe it is.

Many of us do this out of all of those reasons, but we only admit to some of them to certain people at certain times. “Truth,” sometimes, is a moving target.

But we can’t think too much about it, because if we do, we might not be able to do anything! We’d paralyze ourselves with the prospect of tomorrow, and “I don’t have time for that because I have to get the meds into him right now!”

And we know that, on some level, he or she knows what we’re doing and appreciates it — understands the magnitude of the gift we’re giving, and loves us for it. But it would sure be nice to hear it.

Faith, sometimes, is a moving target.

So, go ahead and do whatever you think you need to do to make Thanksgiving “special,” because you’re going to do it anyway. You’ll do something that you didn’t have time to do, and you may not even realize that you did it for a few more days — and when you do, you’ll say to yourself, “Am I nuts?!”

Maybe sanity is a moving target, too. We seem to have a lot of those.

So that night, when you’re very quietly stealing a few moments with some leftovers and planning for the next day (because you will be, and you and I both know it), and thinking that Thanksgiving just isn’t what it’s cracked up to be, remember what that guy in the newspaper said.

He said: “Thank you.”

And when it comes to the “thank you” part, it doesn’t really matter what day it is.

Mark Harvey is the director of information and assistance for the Olympic Area Agency on Aging. He can be reached by email at harvemb@dshs.wa.gov; by phone at 360-532-0520 in Aberdeen, 360-942-2177 in Raymond, or 360-642-3634; or through Facebook at Olympic Area Agency on Aging-Information & Assistance.