Coming from Romania 15 years ago, Thanksgiving was not a big thing for me. I didn’t quite grasp the holiday. My husband cooked and celebrated, and I helped and observed it in a detached way.

11 years ago, it was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. I was 22 weeks pregnant; I was waiting for a test result. Earlier that day, I called the MFM group that ran the test, but they had left for the holiday and did not return my message. It was a big threshold for me because a few years back this test came out very bad at that point in my prior pregnancy. Back then, I did not learn about the test results for two weeks, and I ended up very sick and lost my baby.

It was almost getting dark, around 4:30 PM. I was resigned not to learn about the test result until Monday. I was still pleasantly content as I just brought over my parents from the airport. It was the first time they were visiting. I remember that moment the way we all remember where we were and what we did just before September 11.

The phone rang, and you were on the phone. You told me the test came up fine. You wished me Happy Thanksgiving and hung up. Everything changed. I had a reason for being thankful for kindness and selflessness. That’s what Thanksgiving is!

It feels like a small gesture, and I know it wasn’t. It wasn’t because it probably wasn’t just me, it was a list of worried patients that were waiting for answers. It wasn’t your responsibility; it was someone else’s test and problem. Like everyone else in the US, you probably had other things to do on Thanksgiving Eve’s afternoon, and you still took the time to make that call.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanks,

Ileana