The views stated here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the editors of this newspaper.
I want to share these messages this Thanksgiving day for everything we have been blessed with in our collective lives. Thanksgiving is a wonderful holiday where we can all gather together, take a moment to pause and reflect on all the things we’re grateful for.
“Forever on Thanksgiving day, the heart will find the pathway home.” [Even if has be in the Virtual Cyberspace.] — Wilbur D. Nesbit
The main message I wish to share is this Proclamation issued by President A. Lincoln, I used to read this stirring inspiring message before members of the Velandy family consumed our bountiful dinner with great friends and neighbors. It was especially meaningful when my son was active duty USMC overseas and Marine Reserve some time ago. Thanksgiving Proclamation by Abraham Lincoln (abrahamlincolnonline.org)
This is the proclamation which set the precedent for America’s national day of Thanksgiving. During his administration, President Lincoln issued many orders similar to this. For example, on November 28, 1861, he ordered government departments closed for a local day of thanksgiving.
By the President of the United States of America.
A Proclamation.
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God…
They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union. [This message resonates powerfully with me in the midst of the political tribulations and devastating effects of the Pandemic from coast to coast]
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the Eighty-eighth.
I close with these two messages:
“Thanksgiving is one of my favorite days of the year because it reminds us to give thanks and to count our blessings. Suddenly, so many things become so little when we realize how blessed and lucky we are.” –Joyce Giraud
“Gratitude is the inward feeling of kindness received. Thankfulness is the natural impulse to express that feeling. Thanksgiving is the following of that impulse.” –Henry Van Dyke
I want to take your leave after sharing these memorable words from the II Inaugural Address of the 16th President which is especially poignant and extremely relevant to the fraught circumstances we are being challenged by in all aspects of our lives political, socio-economic and over quarter of million lives of individuals dear and near to our friends and neighbors across the country are being taken tragically, needlessly and prematurely from our midst.
We have already lost a third more lives to pandemic in 8 months than the total combat deaths during the 4 years of the Civil War 1861-1865. Union Combat Deaths 110,000. Confederate Combat deaths: 95, 000 [205,000] compared to 266, 745 deaths attributed to COVID 19. [JH Corona Virus Resource Center.11 26 20]
Our American family have already lost 5 times more loved ones than those who died in the pivotal Battle in Gettysburg [50,000], which inspired President Lincoln to deliver the Immortal Gettysburg Address. There was no such commemoration of our catastrophic losses. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington in Seattle on Thursday projected that the U.S. will have to endure if nothing changes in mitigation strategies an additional 320,403 deaths by January 1 and approximately 438,940 by March 1. This would be sadly 2/3rd of the total casualties during the course of the Civil War. Though the number of killed and wounded in the Civil War is not known precisely, most sources agree that the total number killed was between 640,000 and 700,000 [War by Numbers: Harold Holzer is chairman of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Foundation.]
We must pay heed to the intercessory prayer of the 16th President and work as members of one American Family to fulfill his fervently held dream of uniting the hearts and minds of all Americans North and South at the close of devastating Civil War.
“President Abraham Lincoln: “…With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan…”
II Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865.” The Dept of Veterans Affairs in Washington, DC has these words memorialized on the wall near the entrance- “ to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan” We must commit ourselves as members of a unified American family to do no less for those who have been snatched from their families in untimely and traumatizing manner by the COVID 19 Virus.
I gratefully commit these wishes to the blessings of Almighty God.
Please take great care of your good selves.
Stay in touch, stay well and please strive to stay safe.
Velandy Manohar, MD.
Haddam, CT
Distinguished Life Fellow – Am. Psychiatric Association
Medical Director- Aware Recovery Care-CT[ARC]
President, ARC- In Home Addiction Treatment, PC
Chair, Community Engagement and Outreach Standing Comm,
Community Advisory Council, Office of Health Strategy-CT
