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A Minneapolis author and his family will spend time Thursday documenting the things they're thankful for. It's a Thanksgiving tradition for many families, but one the Lucas family started a few years ago after emerging from a difficult cancer battle.  

Betsy Lucas was 34 when she was diagnosed with an aggressive blood cancer in 2005. She and her husband Brian had a 3-year-old and a 10-month-old. 
  
As word about her health crisis spread, well-meaning people would often marvel at how the family could manage the situation with two young children at home. Brian Lucas said he would always reply that his young daughters helped him get through it all. 

"No matter how dark things were looking in terms of the journey, I could go home and I could see them and they could make me smile and they could make me laugh, and that is about the greatest gift you can have in that situation."

Three years after his wife's life-saving bone marrow transplant, with many of her worst treatment complications finally behind them, Lucas said life started to feel almost normal again. And that realization sparked a new holiday tradition.  

"It was the first time that we felt fully re-engaged with Thanksgiving. And that's where we thought about traditions and bringing in a new tradition and got the jar and the pieces of paper."

Each family member wrote down the things they were most thankful for that year and they dropped the slips of paper into the jar. They add new messages every Thanksgiving, and they re-read the old ones. 

"The girls love it. So it's just a fun way to force yourself to take a moment and be a little introspective and to put something in the jar kind of for the ages. And it's fun to go back and look at them. And what you really see is themes and you see that the core things that you're thankful for don't change a whole lot."

Brian Lucas wrote about his family's experience. His book, 

"Here Comes the Sun: A Young Family's Journey Through Cancer"

Lorna Benson

Author

After Betsy Lucas underwent a life-saving bone marrow transplant, a sense of normalcy finally returned to her family's home and sparked a new holiday tradition aimed at keeping tracks of the important things in life.

Thanksgiving takes new meaning for Mpls. family after cancer scare

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