This year's Thanksgiving Mullings was going to be the written version of a huge sigh of relief: We got through the year.
The Washington, DC region is not the only area of the country which had a tough year, but it was typical of what Americans faced across the continent:
While we were still dealing with the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the Anthrax scare caused us to examine every piece of mail which came to our offices, closed House and Senate office buildings, and brought the fear of terrorism into our homes.
The Middle East occupied our attention as the Arab-Israeli conflict flashed onto our television screens.
On the heels of all that, the economy sagged and sagged and sagged.
As if that weren't enough, we went through the three-week dread of the sniper attacks which ended with the whimper of the two murderers arrested while asleep in a rest area on an interstate highway in rural Maryland.
That's what this edition of Mullings was going to be about.
Then I went to the car wash.
The day before Thanksgiving I was giving the Mullmobile it's quarterly treat: A professional car wash. At Andy's Car Wash in Alexandria, you drop your car off, then go inside to pay. A woman and a little girl - about three-and-a-half - were paying ahead of me.
It was a cold day, so the little girl was bundled up in the way little girls are on cold late-Autumn days.
Ignoring the advice of The Lad, ("Dad, just because you CAN talk to everybody in the world, doesn't mean you HAVE to talk to everybody in the world.") I asked the woman what little girl's name was.
"Destiny," she said, beaming. "She's my baby."
In the way of precocious little girls, Destiny asked me where my car was. I told her it was right behind her mom's.
Destiny looked up and me and asked me if my car was going to be a shiny as her mommy's.
I said I hoped so, and I asked her how shiny her mommy's car was going to be.
She thought about this, with that look of deep concentration little girls get when contemplating great concepts. Then she looked back up at me and said, "Rainbow shiny."
The magnificence of that phrase took my breath away.
The problem with looking at the world through middle-aged eyes is we never see things as being "Rainbow shiny." Even on those rare occasions where we see things as beautiful as a rainbow, we know - from long and often harsh experience - that the rainbow will soon fade.
Rainbows, for grown-ups, never last.
But for Destiny, the world ahead of her is as beautiful as a rainbow. And everything in her world is colored with the hues and shadings contained within the infinite colors of her rainbow.
On this Thanksgiving day, we should try - just for a few minutes - to look at the world ahead though Destiny's eyes: Look at the world as "Rainbow shiny."
Even though we know it won't last, we can enjoy it while we look around the table eating the wonderfully familiar meal, telling the well-told stories, to the same precious people, while remembering fondly any who are missing from this year's Thanksgiving dinner.
As Destiny's mom was strapping her into her child seat, I caught Destiny's eye and pointed to her mom's clean car, smiling and nodding. Then I blew her a kiss.
Destiny, in the way of little girls, hid her eyes and giggled.
This is another kiss to Destiny: Thank you for reminding a grown-up that if I look hard enough I, too, can see the world as "Rainbow shiny."
That little girl is destiny's child.
Happy Thanksgiving.
On the Secret Decoder Ring today: A link to last year's Thanksgiving Mullings and the traditional Norman Rockwell painting, "Freedom from Want."
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