THE MEANING OF THANKSGIVING

By Miles Patrick Yohnke

© 2021 All Rights Reserved.

Thanksgiving in the dictionary means: The expression of gratitude, especially to God.

She was lying in bed thirteen--in the overflow section of St. Paul's hospital--here in my hometown of Saskatoon, Canada, where we celebrate Thanksgiving on the second weekend in October. Mom was recovering from her third of what would be nine bladder cancer surgeries that she would have to face. It was the summer of 2017.

I have two brothers who are much older than I. Nine and eleven years older. I always thought I was an accident. Not planned. I had recently mentioned this to a friend. My friend also had older siblings and carried the same thoughts.

Bridget Rose Yohnke

With soundproof white linen curtains on both sides of her lucky number thirteen bed -- my mother declared -- it was no accident -- I was planned.

My normally deathly quiet and reserved mother suddenly rose into a figure like Martin Luther King, Jr. With the same conviction and confidence of Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech, she said: "you came out of a fifty-five-minute confession with Father Morand at St. Michael's Parish on 33rd Street."

Francis Lewis Yohnke, circa 1952

I was in awesome wonder by her visual impression of words and acute attention to detail that my dear mother voiced. Five decades and more had passed but that confession was as graphic and picturesque to mother like it had happened the Sunday before. Right down to the length of it. It wasn't forty-five minutes. It wasn't sixty minutes. It was fifty-five minutes.

"This confession must have occurred in the early part of 1963?" I asked. With the same passionate animation, she replied: "Oh no... it took your father and I over a year to conceive you."

I had never heard my sweet mother speak with such clarity, conviction and confidence before that day.

Baby Miles

I grew up being told it was the hardest to lose a parent at a very young age and that the first five years of your life shape you.

My father was tragically killed in a potash mine accident. I had been told that he was very hard on my brothers. My father only had an 8th grade education. He had to look for work to help assist his parents. At the age of twelve, my own brothers had to get part-time jobs, working at the Saskatoon Golf and Country Club. I believe my father did this as it was all he knew. He really instilled a strong work ethic in them. Both of my brothers would become much like our father, hugely successful in their lives.

I asked my mom if dad was hard on me? With the same clarity, conviction and confidence as before, she said: "Oh, no... he absolutely adored you."

Christmas 68, at my maternal grandparent's home; 10 weeks from the death of our father

She also mentioned that father's two favourite songs were: "How Great Thou Art" and "Old Rugged Cross." I found great joy and solace in that; in the art he appreciated. It once again conveyed his depth as a human being.

I had faced the tragic loss of my father. I suffer from a severe case of dyslexia and I was bullied relentlessly throughout elementary school by my fellow students and teachers.

Wearing cowboy boots with my pants & blazer. Elton John & Leonard Cohen have/had nothing on me

In several of my articles including: "Soul Mining" and "Make Me an Instrument of Thy Peace," I have written about the obstacles my father faced and the success he achieved. I too have found success which you'll find documented in my testimonial section.

Gord Young, a friend who always has a readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness, recently engaged in a profound and beautiful conversation with me. We explored the meaning of life. I mentioned to him I'd grown up being told that losing a parent at a young age was extremely difficult and that the first five years shape you. I told Gord that the experience was, in fact, something positive for me, even though I was just five years old and six days when my father was killed. I'd had five whole years of being adored. Throughout my life I've had an elevated level of energy and cast-iron concentration. With all the negatives that have happened in my life, I only focus on the positive. Even a positive in my father dying when I was that age.

Gord Young, whose family opened Canada's second KFC franchise in Saskatoon 63 years ago, holds a photo of himself and other family members with Col. Harland Sanders. PHOTO BY KAYLE NEIS /Saskatoon StarPhoenix

The ever-insightful Gord Young and I talked about the contents found in my poem: "The Final Act." That God was the screenwriter. Bringing all his children together. We even laughed that we were together at that very moment. That none of this is an accident.

We talked about the nurturing I received in my first five years that would lead to my becoming the person I am today.

Gord stated with enormous enthusiasm: "your being existed even before your parents conceived you." "Yes," I leaped in. I knew where Gord was going with this. That we all are an expression of God.

For those of you reading who were not as lucky as both Gord and I in having nurtured upbringings, we can envisage the upbringing of Gord Young's father, Joseph Young. Joseph grew up without parents. He was raised by Janie Bartlett of the Children's Aid Society.

To learn more about Joseph Young and the Young family story, please click here and here

I have never really felt as if my father died. I've always felt that he lives inside of me. That he is in my blood and flows through my veins. I've always known that I had important work to do in building up God's children.

I'm an expression of my father. I'm an expression of God.

Soul to soul. Hand in hand. Step by step. Sole into soul we step into one another. Hand in hand we wrap our hands around one another. Another and another we love one another. We step into each other's lives to build each other up. To live in Harmony and with Peace. To live as one. To have gratitude to our Creator for creating us.

We get our strength from spiritual energy. From a collective energy (God).

Miracles do exist. The simple fact that you are here verifies this.

Miles Patrick Yohnke with Dr. Jacqueline Marie Maurice CEO of the Sixties Scoop Healing Foundation.

www.sixtiesscoophealingfoundation.ca

I have gratitude to thy hand that made me. I see the stars. I hear the mighty thunder. Thy power throughout the universe displayed. And when I'm taken home. What joy shall fill my heart. To be reunited with my father and my mother.

My parents Bridget Rose Yohnke and Francis Lewis Yohnke had an abundance of gratitude to God. They were blessed with the miracle of a third child.

I would make my grand entrance into this world at the start of Thanksgiving weekend, October 11, 1963.

Miles Patrick Yohnke painting by Nikolitsa Boutieros

For more information on Nikolitsa Boutieros, please follow these links:

http://www.divinelightphotography.net and http://www.Nikolitsa.com