<p>“Oh, I am bad, bad, and bad…”</p>
<p>No, sunrise, you are not. You are simply human, just like all of us. Please feel free to vent here. We are all standing by, thinking of you, being your silent listeners. The only thing we ask for in return is will you please treat us to a freshly baked apple pie from the apples gathered from that tree at some point in the future?</p>
<p>Sunrise, thanks for the laughs and for sharing your latest update. We continue to think of you all the time and hope that your good days outnumber the bad. :)</p>
<p>Two hours ago, my S1 came home for thanksgiving with a bouquet of flowers. He is resting, so I am posting.</p>
<p>He goes to school in Chicago. We were not expecting him this thanksgiving. He made a plan well before my recurrence to visit his best friend’s family in Kentucky. I wanted to see him, but I did not want to put a leash around his neck and reel him in. Also, I did not want to let the cancer dictate all that happens in this family, and I wanted to let the kids preserve as much normalcy as possible. So when he wondered out loud, upon learning about my recurrence, whether he should come home for thanksgiving, I encouraged him to stick to the original plan. After all, his school has a quarter system, and he will be home by Dec 9.</p>
<p>The door bell rang, and I thought it was my S2 since he was coming home from Pennsylvania and he got a ride. So, I opened the door, and there he was! I was speechless. He told me that when he heard that the latest scan was not good, he decided to come home and wanted to surprise me.</p>
<p>I started to cry - out of joy and happiness. This was the best gift I got in years…</p>
<p>An hour ago, S2 arrived. </p>
<p>We decided to surprise my H. S1 will come downstairs suddenly after H is in the family room.</p>
<p>This will be a very happy thanksgiving indeed…</p>
<p>So glad. :)</p>
<p>sunriseeast, what a wonderful surprise! Enjoy Thanksgiving weekend with your family!! Sounds like you have three wonderful men with you tonight! It also sounds like your sons are real gems!</p>
<p>ENJOY! Strange to have the kids come to visit, isn’t it? Our home is still their home but they have another one where they live their lives. Little boys have all of a sudden grown up- when did that happen? Mine is out of college, both of yours are in…whatever happened… No matter what has become of your health in the past year other changes have changed your life forever. New paradigms. Adult children.</p>
<p>Thanks for venting about the friends. Have no regrets about the characterizations or avoiding some.</p>
<p>Just noticed the thread title last words-“how to help my kids”. They sound mature enough to be thinking “how to help our mother”. So much to be thankful for. Job well done, enjoy the fruits of all of those years instilling good values in them.</p>
<p>What a wonderful surprise :)</p>
<p>Let us know how your husband reacts! Enjoy the weekend!</p>
<p>Yay for boys coming home!</p>
<p>What a wonderful surprise! Enjoy!</p>
<p>my H was shocked! </p>
<p>Now, how much he had to pay for this last minute ticket, I don’t wanna know :)</p>
<p>This is a problem with having a kid away at school beyond the drivable distance.</p>
<p>GREAT Thanksgiving story…great!</p>
<p>Sunrise- So happy for you as you enjoy Thanksgiving with your family. You know what the ads say, “priceless”!</p>
<p>Oh, how wonderful! May you all have a very happy Thanksgiving together! :)</p>
<p>What a wonderful Thanksgiving story to read this morning. Enjoy your family and have a very Happy Thanksgiving!!</p>
<p>sunriseeast, feel free to vent here, and consider that you’ve done a public service, by helping people see how their outreach can be interpreted by the recipient; I hope that all of us reading this will pay it forward by considering how to be sensitive senders of good wishes to others with life issues.</p>
<p>Happy Thanksgiving, sunrise! It’s wonderful that your family is all together.</p>
<p>A whopping hooray for your boy!</p>
<p>S1’s face at the door step yesterday, that goofy grin and a bouquet of flowers he was holding ----- I will never forget</p>
<p>I realize that this was a marking point for a fundamental realignment of our relationship. That, he is no longer my dependent (though, I still have to pay exorbitant tuition for another year and a half 
). Yesterday, he became an adult child who will come to his ailing parent’s rescue, not that I hope we will be in a position to need “rescuing”. </p>
<p>I am also very grateful that it happened this way. He did not come home because someone had put a guilt trip on him for his “ailing mother”. Coming from a culture where guilt is fed by an older generation to a younger generation on a maximum dosage day in and day out, I vowed never to do this to my kids even if that means that I may be “neglected” here and there. But in the end, I got my cake and ate it too. </p>
<p>I feel profoundly thankful this morning…</p>
<p>So nice…:)</p>