The Greatest Thanksgiving of My Life
Reunited with Loved Ones After 18 Years of Estrangement
Something so extraordinary recently happened that this may be the greatest Thanksgiving of my life.
When I was a child, I was effusive with my love for the world to such a degree that a camera crew came to our home to interview me and ask me about the source of my love. From as young as age two, I spoke about seeing God in everything and everyone—a God that was not attached to any religious beliefs, as I was not raised in a religious home. Perhaps it was because I had spiritual experiences from as young as I can remember, as a result of suffering loss at a tender age, or maybe it was simply as an expression of my spirit through this human existence.
As early as age four, I would gingerly walk through nature and touch every blade of grass to tell it how loved it was. I wondered if something was wrong with me to have this much love in my heart in need of expressing. Do I have a love leak? Do other people have this much love and they know how to keep it hidden? Should I be hiding my love too? Teachers and children called me Snow White because animals seemed to feel the warmth of my love and surround me. Even today, on my daily beach walks, random house cats in the neighborhood will walk beside me, birds and butterflies are always near, dogs pull on their human leashes to say hello, and I have the best luck seeing dolphins, sharks, whales, and my favorite—pelicans diving. Where is this love coming from? Why do I radiate love and have a need to actively express it, especially in nature?
When the camera crew came to our home, I was maybe seven and my brother just a toddler. I had my arms around him and was kissing the top of his head and telling him how much I loved him and telling the people over and over, “I love my brother so much; he’s my baby!” When they showed me the footage back, I overheard an adult say, “Poor kid. She must give so much love because she isn’t being given enough love.” For years, that statement haunted me, and I wondered if that was true. It was a fact that I was an unplanned child, the result of a teenage pregnancy, growing up in broken homes of turmoil; but was my love for others just an expression of a deficit of love I felt from others?
When I met my husband, he was wonderfully loving and he came from a deeply loving family—no deficit of love there, so maybe love comes from an abundance of love, not a lack of love; but if that’s the case, how could I explain the love that sprang forth from me in the absence of love I received as a child? Perhaps love is something we are born with—an umbilical cord to source that we can plug into whenever we choose—and some of us never had that umbilical cord cut.
My daughter was the most planned, wanted, loved child I’ve ever known. She was born into a loving, two parent home of stability. The love she gave couldn’t possibly be born from a deficit of love. The first time I picked her up from her Kindergarten class I noticed all the kids in the class were lined up to give her a hug goodbye. When I dropped her off the next morning, all the kids in the class lined up to give her a hug hello. I asked the teachers if they did this for every kid; and they said, “Nope. Just your girl. We love her love.” The teachers and class later awarded a certificate to our daughter for “Biggest Heart.” She loved everyone and everything just as exuberantly as I did. This made me feel like my love wasn’t the result of being broken, but rather of being restored.
Did I teach her how to love, or was she born that way? Is it nature or nurture? My home as a child was not filled with the kind of love I give, so I don’t know where I learned it from. Love for me is like gas; I can’t keep it inside even if I tried. Those love bubbles find their way out of me no matter what I do. Sometimes I have so much love inside me, I feel like I will burst; passersby beware. What if the way we feel love inside of us isn’t nature or nurture? What if it’s a force, a palpable energy that others can feel, that when charged, expands and multiplies, keeping us in a Möbius strip of ever-flowing love? Of course, I don’t go around burping love all the time. I have grumpy moods and sullen days just like everyone else; but gratefully, they seem to be mostly few and far between and easily transformed by a long walk in nature or in singing my heart out to a good power ballad.
I realized that the unrestrained love my daughter and I have for the world is not because of a deficit of love we feel from others but because of an abundance of love we were born with—love that dances in our cells. The more love we give, the more love comes back to us; and it’s an ever-growing abundance. I have long maintained that the purpose of life is to love and be loved; and this Thanksgiving, decades of hopes and prayers were answered, and I was able to (socially distance) share my love with people I hadn’t seen in 18 years who matter more to me than any words could ever express. I was reunited with people I love with all my heart and my spirit has been healed in ways I did not realize it was harmed. This is a new chapter in all our lives I can hardly wait to write and read together.
My Substack for November was slated to be “A Beautiful Story,” a charming personal anecdote of political unity through common humanity. Then, a major life event occurred, combining celebration, chaos, drama, tragedy, trauma, death, freedom, and healing, which I couldn’t even begin to process without first writing about it. I continue to feel the gravity of each puzzle piece as I watch it gracefully fall into place. Every hour of the day in the month of November has been so eventful for our family that I have had little time to adjust to the dramatic turning point, which has the potential to expand our lives and future from this day forth, in profound ways beyond measure.
I spent the past week writing what I thought would be a Substack to share with you what happened; but even in simply writing the gripping and poignant facts and actual dialogue that took place, and then editing: edit, after edit, after edit, the story was 10,000 words, too long for a Substack. Therefore, I turned it into a small pocketbook play, a “nonfiction novella,” if you will, in script format, which is in the process of being published as we speak. I can see this story easily translating to the big screen or a Netflix special (please reach out if you have the contacts), so that is what I hope to present to you next month. I promise you do not want to miss this. It’s an unforgettable story that has altered my life, and at least 20 other lives, in phenomenal ways. This news is so complex that the small edition book is only the outside layer in this onion. The rest will be revealed in an upcoming memoir. Being grateful for the good we have is not a denial of the tragedy and despair that exist in life. It’s a choice as to which reality we choose to linger on the most.* I’ve never known a story quite like this one. Who knows, reading it may change your life too.
Until then, I leave you with a link to this wonderful podcast, “WORLD GONE GOOD,” in which I had the honor of being one of many guests who share a bit of what they are thankful for this year. It was recorded before this major event took place, but you can still hear the love I have for life come through in my voice. Carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders crushes the creative solutions born of a light heart. We bring forth a garden of goodness by sowing the seeds of play and gratitude.* I hope you will hear the playful light of my love come through in my voice. I’m very grateful to have been a guest and to share this cornucopia of gratitude with you today. I come on at the 17:48 mark as Sage Justice, but I hope you listen to the entire podcast of goodness. I am grateful to you, dear reader, for your continued support. Thank you for reading and subscribing to my Substack. Thank you Steve Silverman for having me as a guest on your podcast. I look forward to sharing more soon. Happy Thanksgiving!
Sage Justice is achingly sincere. Balancing wisdom and humor she most often writes deeply personal solution based pieces about the enduring virtues that connect us all: love and healing. She is an award-winning playwright and critically acclaimed performing artist who has appeared on stages from Madison Square Garden in New York City, to The Comedy Store in Hollywood, California. Ms. Justice is the author of Sage Words FREEDOM Book One, an activist, a member of the Screen Actors Guild and an alumna Artist-In-Residence of Chateau Orquevaux, France. She is a co-founder of The Unity Project which fuses activism with art, to educate and inspire, with a special emphasis on community engagement to end homelessness. She has a series of short reels about living with the rare genetic disorder, Vascular Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome that you can find in a highlight reel on her Instagram page @SageWords2027.