This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. – Psalm 118:24

I personally know of no more thankful person than my mother, Ireland Cooke.

When I was growing up, she and Dad owned two businesses. Dad owned Cooke Mortuary, and Mom owned Ireland Cooke Printing Company. The printing company was behind our house, and the mortuary was beside our house. All three places were my childhood home.

Mom started the printing company in our basement when I was in first grade, because she wanted to print Dad’s funeral folders. Then people started asking her to print stuff for them, and the business grew. Eventually she hired her sister Aggie Haynes, and others, to help.

Mom sometimes worked 16-hour days. My bedroom was directly above the main printing press. Many nights, I would go to sleep to its dull rhythmic beat.

Ten years after Mom printed Dad’s first funeral folders, the business overflowed from the basement into our living space. Our living room became the front office. Our dining room table became an editing and collating desk.

Mom worked in the print shop while also helping Dad at the mortuary, being a wife and mom, gardening, canning, teaching Sunday school, and milking a cow every day. Fortunately, our Jersey didn’t care whether she was milked at 6:00 in the morning or 6:00 at night!

Dad died of cancer during my first month of college in 1983, and Mom worked even harder. It wasn’t until the 1990s, when Mom was in her eighties, thirty years after she started the printing company, that it started making a good profit. We always had what we needed, but not a lot of extras.

Mom and Dad had a generous business philosophy. They charged less than market rate for their services, they helped a lot of people for free, and they gave a lot away.

Mom and dad worked hard. And they endured a lot. Mom suffered two miscarriages before I was born. Dad buried two of his own grandsons, ages 10 and 22. Undiagnosed health problems would knock Dad flat for days. Within a 7-year span, Mom had triple-bypass heart surgery, a broken foot, and a hip replacement.

In 2003, when Mom was 84, she suffered a catastrophic stroke. From that time until she died seven years later, she was in a wheelchair, could not use her right arm or leg, and could not speak more than just a few words. Throughout those 7 years, she was in and out of the hospital and rehab.

But do you know what? I never heard my mother complain about anything. Mom and Dad were extremely happy. They were in the sweet spot of a happy family, a strong faith, and a God-honoring calling. They were blessed.

And most of all, gratitude was at the very core of who my mother was. She constantly gave thanks for her blessings. After she could no longer speak, her most frequent communication was to lean forward with that bright twinkle in her eye, and point with a crooked smile upward to her Lord in heaven.

Happiness comes from being thankful, not vice versa. I want to be filled with the gratitude of all that God is, and all that He has given to my husband and me.

I am filled with gratitude to God for my family, friends, church, material blessings, divine calling, and most of all for the gift of His Son Jesus Christ.

That I may proclaim with the voice of thanksgiving, and tell of all Your wondrous works. – Psalm 26:7

What are you thankful for?

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