The highway between my Elma home and West Olympia seems to yield delightful scenes every season of the year. But I don’t recall ever having seen before the picturesque displays I observed along the way there — and back again — several days ago.

Knowing I was about to travel in her direction for a medical appointment, my older daughter, Angela, sent me a text. “It’s very snowy here,” she warned, “so be careful.”

I was, but I was also in for a treat.

Burnt orange and golden-hued autumn leaves still clung to maples and other deciduous trees I passed. But snowy-white “Christmas tree skirts” seemed to lie beneath them, suggesting a blended autumn/winter holiday.

I was thrilled and hugely thankful to have been in the “right place at the right time” to have observed such a splendor of “decoration.” And that brings me to November’s special holiday, Thanksgiving.

Yes, the turkey feast is indeed my favorite meal of the year. In fact, I doubt I’d tire of it were it available every day.

But there’s way more, and even better, than that — and I’m hoping folks in our country will begin to be drawn back to the wonder and joy that comes simply from being thankful.

In many ways, this has been a year of vicious hostility, animosity and bitterness, especially when it comes to politics and opinions. For countless reasons, that’s not good for us. It robs us of hope, plunders our joy and pillages and ransacks our health.

Is it worth keeping those we consider our enemies in our sights, as if holding a gun to their heads, until they say, do or think what we want them to? Aiming all that acrimony at others can’t end well. Moreover, if we haven’t yet, someday we may go too far in our hateful ways never to find the path back to sanity.

Where will it end?

I’m not referring to terrorists, such as ISIS. I’m wondering if the hatred of so many Americans for their fellow citizens, only because they hold opinions and beliefs different from those who hate them, is going to keep escalating until the Biblical reference by Abraham Lincoln about the Civil War, comes to pass. “A house divided against itself,” Lincoln quoted from the account in several of the New Testament Gospels, “cannot stand.”

Jesus said it first, and He wasn’t kidding around. When he healed a man fraught with horrible troubles, many wondered if He might be “the son of David,” the long-awaited Messiah. But some self-seeking Jewish leaders claimed Jesus had accomplished the powerful healing by “the ruler of the demons.”

How much better off would those leaders have been had they turned from their egocentric ways and been thankful instead for the miraculous healing the man had received?

Gratitude is seldom far from my mind; I have so much to be thankful for. Though I have medical issues that cause persistent pain and am joining a workshop on “Living a Healthy Life with Chronic Pain,” I’m constantly aware that I could have much worse.

Furthermore, I have great medical insurance, a primary care doctor that works with me and surgeons who’ve done much to help. Had I lived a century ago, my dominant hand would have remained so painful it would have been unusable. After the surgery I mentioned in a recent column, followed by seven weeks with a cast, which was removed just 18 days ago, my hand is far better than it’s been in ages. And at the rate it’s still improving, I think it’ll soon be pain-free.

Is my life a bed of roses? Nope. There are thorns, too, but they don’t rule my life. I’ve been in other parts of the world where people have much worse, as do some in my own country. We should pray for and help them whenever we can. Focusing on our own pain can keep us from doing as much good as we otherwise could.

John Henry Jowett, a British author and preacher in the late 19th- and early 20th-century, said, “Life without thankfulness is devoid of love and passion. Hope without thankfulness is lacking in fine perception. Faith without thankfulness lacks strength and fortitude. Every virtue divorced from thankfulness is maimed and limps along the spiritual road.”

Who wants to live that way? Being thankful is a virtue worth pursuing.

Jowett also maintained that “Gratitude is a vaccine, an antitoxin, and an antiseptic.” Sounds like it’s good for what ails you. I suggest we all have a Thanksgiving filled with gratitude and keep doing the same every day for the rest of the year — and every year after that.

Tommi Halvorsen Gatlin is a retired reporter, who still contributes to The Vidette. Contact her by emailing the editor at editor@thevidette.com