Still Thankful

Every year around this time we have posted a Thanksgiving blog, noting all the ways in which we are thankful and sharing suggestions for children's books about Thanksgiving. We remain thankful this year but, as with so many aspects of our lives, in very different ways than we could have imagined even just a year ago.

We are thankful that The Yellin Center is able to be open and that we can see students in-person in our spacious, COVID-modified office space. We have found that many parents have seen new aspects of their child's challenges and strengths while watching them learn remotely, and we are glad that we can help support both students and their parents in these unique learning times. 

We are incredibly grateful for the dedication and skill of our clinical and administrative staff, whom have kept us going through these difficult months. We are thankful that our staff has stayed safe and well and that our own kids and grandkids have too. Both family members and dear friends have lost parents to COVID and we have shared in their sorrow. And we know that so many others have also suffered losses. Our thoughts go out to them all.

We remain grateful for the front line medical workers - and the folks who work in the grocery stores, deliver our mail and packages, and do so many other things to keep us going in these difficult times. We are glad to see that here in NYC, wearing a mask and keeping distance is very much the standard, but we remain alarmed to see that these simple steps to protect ourselves and others are not universal, and certainly not once you get outside of our New York bubble. Why is it that our not-quite-three-year-old grandson always wears a mask when outside, but so many grownups still haven't learned this lesson?

We are thankful for the light at the end of the tunnel - the excellent news about soon to be available vaccines that can eventually bring this national crisis to an end. We are enormously grateful to the scientists whose tireless work and dedication will make this possible and look forward to this "shot in the arm" for all of us.

We are thankful, too, that our nation seems to be slowly moving past a gut-wrenching election process and that the path to presidential transition seems to be growing clearer. We continue to hope that everyone involved puts the good of our country first, and that January 20, 2021 dawns clear and sunny, with blue skies ahead. 

So, as your blogger plans a Thanksgiving feast for our immediate family, with a break for a Zoom call with the multitude of Yellin relatives who usually make our holiday so wonderful, we wish you all a happy, healthy Thanksgiving!

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