Beyond Just Desserts: A Recipe of Thanksgiving

Sara Yoheved Rigler reminds us the importance of gratitude  in her current article on Aish.com

Although it was my second extended period helping out at this Calcutta orphanage, I still marveled at the standard of living of the girls. Growing up, I had had my own room; these girls didn’t even have their own beds. They slept on thin mattresses spread on the floor, two girls to a mattress, sharing a blanket and a mosquito net. During the day the mattresses were piled up in a corner, and the room was used for play and doing homework.

Their only private space amounted to a box the size of a large shoe box. In this box each girl kept all her worldly possessions: the one of her two cotton frocks she was not currently wearing, two pencils, and a copy book. About 25 of the girls owned a pair of sandals, which they trotted out on special occasions. About a dozen girls owned a pretty dress, a gift from an impoverished grandmother. That that was it. No other garments. No toothbrush. No crayons. Not one girl owned enough to fill her box. Yet they were the most cheerful and loving group of people I knew. I adored them.

The girls prevailed on me to teach them English. One day we were on the lesson in our book about opposites: tall-short, thin-fat, rich-poor. After explaining the words in simple English, I would have one girl stand in front of the class and ask, “Is Bhavani thin, fat, or medium?”

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