Time of thanksgiving for the most important people in our lives

A friend asked this week which Thanksgiving holiday we celebrate — American or Canadian.

Both! 

One of the best parts of becoming an American citizen was to get two official Thanksgiving holidays in one season.  Of course, we celebrate with thanksgiving every single day.  So, at the start of Thanksgiving week, we give thanks for the most important people in our lives.

I give thanks every day for my little sister.

Brandi (right) and me, posing at my wedding. (Jeff Vinnick photo)

She’s not my sister by birth, but by choice.

Brandi Booker and I met when she was a child, and her mother wanted her to have a “big sister” in a house full of boys.

She was in her pre-teens, and shy.  I was in my early 20s and learning how to overcome shyness.

We were shy at first with each other, too.  Kind strangers brought us together, and we were committed to learning about how Big Sister/Little Sister pairings work.

I met her mother, and her brothers, and promised — yes, promised — that I would do my best to be a good sister to their precious girl.

Brandi and I grew together.  At first, it was just an hour or two a week, seeing a movie, going out to eat, or window shopping.

We learned how to be a Big Sister/Little Sister.  We were timid at first, and ultra-polite in that sweet way common to girls-who-will-be-women and women-who-once-were girls (OK, I was the girl-who-refused-to-grow-up.)

This wasn’t always easy for either of us.  I didn’t have children; she lived in a house full of youngsters.  She was in elementary school; I was working hard to establish myself in a highly competitive career.

We discovered our differences were blessings:  I had lived on a farm most of my life, and was learning how to be an urban career woman; her young life was all inner city.

We had adventures together in the country and city.  We built a dollhouse.  (And if you know either of us, you would appreciate just how remarkable that was.)

Brandi visited my home in the country, with its chattering blue jays and two Husky/collie puppies.  I visited her inner city home, aching sometimes at the gulf between our lives away from each other.

And yet.

I admired Brandi from the moment we met.  She was facing the world, without blinking. She was quiet yet strong in ways that impressed everyone who met her.

Brandi today.

My family adored her from the beginning, especially my Mom.

Brandi was so elegant, even from a young age, and poised — unlike any other girls we knew in that age group.  Frankly, unlike me, at any age.

Whenever I introduced Brandi to friends, they always had that same impression:  Such quiet reserve, such beauty.

Everyone thought she was a professional model.  She was a high school student.

Brandi has always had the kind of beauty that cannot be manufactured or bought or faked.  She has an inner beauty that is extraordinary, and a deep compassion for others.

This is nowhere more evident than in motherhood.

Emerald-eyed Jaden as a baby.

I was with Brandi when her first baby was born in Toronto, meeting the dad and a boy with wide eyes so green that he just had to be named Jaden.

I was astonished by how much love I felt when I first saw him.  The first time I held Jaden — on Toronto’s Front St., on a sunny morning — I looked at Brandi and laughed to discover that my heart could grow.  I fell in love, in a way that doesn’t compare to romantic love or decades-long, familial love.

Work took me far away from Brandi when her daughter was born, so I missed the early years of a lovely girl named for a French perfume.  We all laugh that she was born a diva. I loved her too, from the first, sparkling, time we were introduced.

Diva-turned-teen.

Brandi and I live on opposite sides of North America, so don’t see each other often.  But every time I speak to her and the children on the phone, or we connect through social media, I feel my heart move.

When I was recovering in hospital from near-death eleven years ago, a letter squeezed through hospital security (and, even stronger, my family “guard”).  It was from Brandi’s mom.

This girl, these children are ours, she wrote.  They are our future.

I won’t reveal the intimate contents of that precious letter, but know this:  It helped me live.

With gratitude to Brandi and the Booker family … for everything.

One veteran fights ‘the largest war’ and for that, has our lasting gratitude

(Ret.) General Pete Chiarelli: ‘The largest war we’ve ever fought.’ (Hadi Dadashian photo)

One American returned from the Iraq war to fight a new war that is claiming our veterans.

On Veterans Day, we will make patriotic speeches and perhaps put a hand to our hearts and convince ourselves that we are truly grateful for the service of so many.

Ret.-General Pete Chiarelli has the courage to say that gratitude is not enough.

Chiarelli retired last year from 40 years of service, so has our gratitude for all those decades in the Army.

But our gratitude is even greater for the work he’s doing now, as executive director of One Mind for Research, a revolutionary non-profit.

Chiarelli was known in the Army as the ‘go to guy’ on winning better support for troops returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan with traumatic brain injuries, post-combat stress, and other mental health issues.

“It’s a tsunami, the largest war we’ve ever fought,” Chiarelli says. “The numbers are going through the roof.”

We traveled with Chiarelli for a day after he accepted this new mission.  We were struck by his tenderness, especially, at a private gathering of wounded warriors, in treatment for a range of post-war mental health issues.  In the clipped staccato of a man accustomed to giving orders, Chiarelli asked each man and woman their name and tour of duty.

As the veterans politely answered Chiarelli’s questions, the mood in the room moved from the wariness of meeting an imposing officer, to relief.  Chiarelli was gentle, almost fatherly, and focused on each of the young soldiers with keen concern.

My heart ached.

Chiarelli was compassionate and kind, and reassuring.  We were struck by his way of spreading hope in a space where inner pain was tangible.

Afterward, mingling with the wealthy who are donating millions to this global research campaign on brain injuries and disorders, Chiarelli’s tone changed.

More veterans are “choosing to die by suicide than on the battlefield,” Chiarelli boomed. “That’s unacceptable.”

The way he said it left no mistake about his commitment to this new mission.

Chiarelli is wooing American defense contractors to pay it forward by donating some of their profits into the research and care of veterans who have sacrificed and suffered so much.

“They made a lot of money and they have a responsibility,” he said.

So do we, general, so do we.

With gratitude to veterans of so many wars, in so many countries.  Monday is Veterans Day in the U.S., and Remembrance Day in Canada, the U.K. and many countries around the world.

If you want to show gratitude for those who have protected us, and continue to protect us, do more than say ‘thanks’ on Nov. 11. Donate to 1Mind4Research, the Wounded Warrior Project, or any other group helping the wounded.

Better still, volunteer to help those injured at war, whether it’s in a nursing home with WWII veterans, or in the community with returnees from Afghanistan.  I guarantee it will change the way you think about military service. Please, pay it forward.

Kathleen Kenna is a Certified Clinical Trauma Professional and rehabilitation counselor who works with wounded warriors.