My son brought home a picture of a turkey. He colored it brown, with red feet and a red blibbery-blabbery thing under the chin. Underneath the picture he wrote in pencil, “I am thankful for Rth.” The “t” is a little cross symbol, not evidently a “t” at first. Since he’s just learning how to read and write, it was anybody’s guess exactly what this sentence was meant to say. Thankful for RNX (a local radio station)? Thankful for R+H (his parents’ initials)? Thankful for some animé character I have yet to learn about? Needing an answer to this mystery, I marched outside to ask my son to read it to me.

I interrupted him playing in the waning afternoon light with his brother. They were tossing paper airplanes with little paper clips affixed underneath them. I held up the paper. “What does this say?” He looked at the paper and his expression changed. When he reads, his face completely flattens and placidifies.

“I am thankful for earth,” he said.

Whatever angry beast had been screaming in my heart all day long, feeling the pain of failure, the agony of at-home isolation in a desperate, trash-strewn, poverty-stricken neighborhood, gasped out in momentary relief.