One of the most valuable yet least expensive gifts we can give is to abandon the assumptions we’ve made and the conclusions we’ve drawn about each other. For all we know about one another, we understand each other very little.

Most of us reach a point where an impossibility hits—something we didn’t foresee and didn’t plan for. It washes us away like a tsunami. If we survive, we wake up to a world that looks nothing like the day before, and never will again.

We all live in the aftermath of our own private impossibilities. It does no good to publicly dwell on the losses that seem to occur with increasing frequency as we get older, yet it also seems disingenuous to ignore them.

Today is about giving thanks, but I want to acknowledge the pain that lurks behind so many thankful smiles. I see it. I feel it. I understand.