Giving Thanks

In the midst of a gajillion things to be thankful for, I've decided that one of my deepest thanks this year is for all of my ancestors.

My thinking is a bit like Rick's in the 1942 film Casablanca: "Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine. . . . ."  Except even more so, and perhaps without the gin joints.

• Of all the countries and all the cities in all the world, my ancestors moved across oceans, states, and cities to set up housekeeping.
• Of all the people in all the world, each pair of my direct ancestors fell in love (I assume), married (another assumption) and in any case produced children who in turn also became ancestors.
• Of the roughly 30,000 genes  and 3164.7 million nucleotide bases in my genome (a complete set of DNA), the genomes of each ancestor combined in such a way, throughout every generation, that I turned out to be who I am today.

Whatever your beliefs, or nonbeliefs, in a higher power, the chances are indeed pretty small that we have become who we are.  Reasons indeed to give thanks!