Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays because it celebrates gratitude.
We often forget to be grateful for many things in life such as our health, our families, our friends, our neighbors, our towns, and that we live in the greatest place on the planet -- Alaska. Now is the time to reflect on such things.
I'm thankful for Special Olympics Alaska and its president, Jim Balamaci, for their work promoting sports training and competition for people of disabilities. They help more than 2,000 Alaskans enjoy the thrills of athleticism by sponsoring winter, summer, and fall games. Recently, some 300 volunteers pulled off a three-day bowling tournament in Anchorage featuring roughly 250 Special Olympians. The experience was great for athletes, their families, volunteers, and fans.
I'm grateful for the 20 years in public office, ten of those in the Alaska State House. It can be challenging sometimes to be a public official, but I relish living in a state where people engage in vigorous debate over policy -- be it the gas pipeline, oil taxes, or fish and game management. No matter what happens in the political arena, there is always something to learn.
Take for example, this story sent to me via email from Mary Tony of Fairbanks.
Last Halloween, Mary's 83-year-old mother, Pauline, fell at home in Anchor Point - hundreds of miles away from the Golden Heart City. She was alone at the time with no one to come to her aid. Nobody knew this until Mary started making phone calls a few days later.
She called Alaska State Troopers, but, according to Mary, the local officer was hesitant to break into the quiet home to check on Mary's mom, claiming he wasn't allowed to do so.
Like many Alaskan, Mary was not willing to take no for an answer.
She called a family friend, Madelaine Pruitt, who sped over to the home, found the door unlocked, and discovered Pauline still alive on the floor in the pantry.
"My mother is slowly recovering in the Homer hospital," Mary writes in her email. "It is a miracle she survived and a testament to the strength and spirit of the pioneers of our state."
Mary says her mom came to Alaska as a registered nurse in 1948 and worked in hospitals in Kodiak, Anchorage, Juneau, Dillingham, and Fairbanks and as a community health aide in St. Mary's.
"She cared for children of the TB epidemic, chronic inebriates at alcohol treatment centers, and the mentally ill who were hospitalized," Mary says. "She raised and homeschooled her four children as a single mother in a remote log cabin she built. Three of those four children have college degrees. People would come to our cabin for medical care or to bring letters for her to read to help them understand, and she would type letters of reply for them."
Mary wonders whether the Alaska of today has the same values of yesteryear.
"[T]he way my mother raised me," she writes, "and the way the spirit of Alaska is for me -- if each of your mothers was injured, lying alone on the floor in the dark of her house, I would not hesitate to break the door down if you called me to check on her. I would not make her lie there alone, hungry, dehydrated, and in her excrement another night and I would not make you cry all night, sick with worry whether she is dead or alive.
"The Alaska I grew up in was a place we took care of each other."
Mary, Alaska is still that kind of place.
I shall follow up on this matter, but for now, I am grateful that Mary's mother is alive - thanks to the vigilance of her family and friends. Mary's story is a sobering reminder of how interconnected we are and how lucky we are to have each other. And for that poignant point, I am grateful.
John Harris is a Teamster, a fourth-generation Alaskan, and the Republican state representative from House District 12, which includes Chickaloon, Delta Junction, Glennallen, Salcha, Sutton, and Valdez.