I used to prompt my relatives to say what they were thankful for before the Thanksgiving turkey was carved.

Holding the bird hostage for some words of gratitude really embodies the holiday spirit, doesn't it? Understandably, the answers became repetitive by the time we made it around the room. Surprise: Everyone is thankful for family, food, good health, friends and shelter.

Those are the things for which we cannot be thankful enough -- especially when the news is filled with images of refugee families fleeing war and persecution. We should find a moment every day of our lives to feel blessed for having our physical and emotional needs met. Along with finding a sense of purpose, these are fundamental to our understanding of a good life.

A recent New York Times op-ed by Arthur C. Brooks broke down the science of gratitude and why it makes us happier. In it, he suggested we practice gratefulness for "useless" things, as well. It's easy to recognize the Big Blessings, but the truly happy people find ways to be grateful for the insignificant and inconsequential.

When times seem darkest, it might be even more important to recognize and appreciate the little things. These are the things that can get lost in the midst of larger despair.

I took his advice to heart.

Instead of trying to extort gratitude at a contrived moment, I asked my children and husband to share the small, weird things they appreciate in their lives. Their answers were amusing, but also revealed something deeper about what they value.

My 10-year-old son said he was thankful for gravity because "we would be on the ceiling right now without it, and it would be really uncomfortable." He mentioned planet Earth, heaters, comforters and a cozy bed. Clearly, a child who appreciates comfort.

He's also grateful for batteries -- the lifeblood to his video games -- and for the comics, specifically "Pearls Before Swine" and "Mark Trail." That the daily newspaper is a morning ritual for him is a large joy for me.

His 13-year-old sister rattled off a surprisingly long list, considering that she has that teenage air of chronic dissatisfaction about her so often.

She mentioned ponytail holders, the band Twenty One Pilots, phone chargers, digital clocks, Sharpies that are better for drawing than regular markers, gelatin-free marshmallows and the unicorn emoji. "It's aesthetically pleasing," she explained. I know she's also rather fond of snarky Internet memes.

She added that she's grateful for words in the English language that sound funny, like "disgruntled." To hear her include words among the things she's grateful for provoked an even greater sense of gratitude in me.

I didn't think my husband of 15 years would note anything surprising to me, since we know one another pretty well by this point.

I could have guessed that imported loose tea and turntables (for his hundreds of LPs) would be on his list. But I didn't expect to hear that he was grateful for credit card machines at the gas pump and online banking. I'm starting to see the genetic connection to our child who appreciates convenience.

He added that he's at the age where he's thankful for "oldies" radio station, because they play songs from the '70s -- the music of his youth.

Good thing I'm much younger, I thought. (Not that much.)

My own list may have also been predictable. I'm grateful for GPS apps, so I'm lost less often. I appreciate that yoga pants have become acceptable to wear just about anywhere.

The mild fall temperatures and vibrant fall colors make me unreasonably happy.

I also have a fondness for emojis, the hearts and hearts-as-eyes smiley face, in particular. They add an element of warmth to the cold brevity of shorthand communication.

Speaking of phones, I'm grateful for grandfather clauses on unlimited data plans.

I'd be lying if I left off my hometown Cardinals.

Every day, I'm grateful for the prose of the writers I've read.

Whenever I sit down to write, I'm infinitely grateful for readers.

I realized from the commonalities in our lists that convenience is time saved. We appreciate technology that aids connection and communication.

We need music, art, words, entertainment to feel fully engaged.

Sometime in the next few weeks, find a moment to ask yourself and your loved ones about the unconventional things you're all grateful for. See if you learn anything new about each other.

You might find that the small things aren't so inconsequential after all.

A girlfriend gave birth last week to a healthy, 9-pound baby boy. In the process of getting an epidural to numb the pain of labor, she ended up with such excruciating spinal headaches that she was unable to rise from her bed to care for her newborn.

The chances of this happening -- namely, leakage of spinal fluid from the dura, resulting in severe headaches -- are only about 1 in 200. But when you are the one suffering, statistics are irrelevant.

She said she cried, she prayed, she bargained with God to relieve the blinding headaches. She had moments when she wondered if she would survive if the pain continued.

Certainly, pain is unavoidable in our lives. It comes in a rainbow of forms: emotional, like the anguish accompanying grief or the ache of loss and sadness; and physical, which can be latent and chronic, or acute and debilitating.

The worst pain can render us helpless and force us into submission. My pain is in my gut, and it comes in crashing waves. Fortunately, the pain does not appear very often; for the most part, I control it with diet and medication. But when it does hit, it can be paralyzing: keeping me up at night, making my hands shake. I focus on breathing until each tidal wave passes. It can be terrifying to have a part of your own body turn against you -- twisting and burning with such force.

Like my friend and me, millions of parents struggle to deal with serious pain while trying to care for their children. The immediate thought that crosses a mother's mind at the first signs of an illness? "I don't have time for this." How can you keep up with a toddler, preschooler or tween when you can't get out of bed?

There is competing advice on how parents should navigate these waters, but the most crucial thing a parent in pain can do is to reach out for help. Let someone else take over the parenting reins when necessary. For the times when pain is immobilizing, there's little choice.

Needing help does not make us bad parents. Being able to accept an outstretched hand helps us recognize the value of our relationships. Our loved ones can provide not only moral and logistical support, but also new perspectives and nudges toward treatment. In the case of the new mother with the throbbing headaches, a friend came to her house and persuaded her to go to an emergency room. A medical procedure helped eliminate her pain within a few days.

Some parents in pain wear a disguise. They manage to go through the necessary motions, without losing their temper, and the child may be clueless as to the lengths taken to create the artificial peace. A part of us whispers that we should keep our lonely sacrifice a secret.

Some pain management sites say that while our instinct is to shelter our children from our pain, we should instead talk about it as honestly as possible. Use simple language, and speak calmly and quietly. Reassure children that it isn't their fault. Relate it to something in their own experience, such as falling off a bike. Tell them you will get better, even if you're not sure when or how.

If there is one thing mothers know, it is our capacity for strength. But through pain, we learn our capacity for humility. And when the pain subsides, it leaves us with a renewed appreciation for health.

Our children will inevitably experience their own hurts. Watching us deal with ours shows them how to handle their own.

I vividly remember my mother's moments of pain. When she was bedridden with asthma, laboring for each breath, I felt an ache in my own lungs. She did not have to say anything for me to recognize her struggle. I could not offer much, except to lie next to her periodically, bring her medicines and ask her if she wanted soup.

It was enough.

Humans -- including parents -- need their pain to be recognized, ideally by someone who cares about the suffering.

I stood in front of the pile of old shoes at Yad Vashem for a long while.

Visiting Israel's national monument to the Holocaust, I felt paralyzed in front of those shoes, especially the tiny ones.

Later, I read about toddler Hinda Cohen. She was taken from her bed and deported to Auschwitz in a children's roundup on March 27, 1944. When Hinda was taken, her shoe was left behind. Upon finding it, her father etched the date on its sole. Her parents survived the war. They kept their daughter's shoe and birth certificate, along with a pair of mittens that her mother had sewn for her from scraps of material, until they died.

That is the legacy of registering religious minorities and making them carry special identification.

I've listened for the past several days to the rising rhetoric and hysteria about refugees and Muslims.

I listened while Donald Trump trolled our Constitution by saying the government may need to shut down some mosques if he becomes president, and that we may need to allow warrantless searches targeting Muslim Americans.

I listened while the "reasonable" candidate, the man whose father and brother have been presidents, joined in, suggesting that only Christian refugees be allowed to enter this country.

I read the letter, stunned, in which the Democratic mayor of Roanoke, Virginia cited the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II as a valid precedent for keeping out Syrian refugees today.

But when the leading GOP candidate for president suggests he's open to the idea of Muslim Americans carrying special identification or registering in a national database, all I could think about were those shoes.

As many readers know, I am Muslim, as is my family. I'm not a refugee, and I'm not scared of refugees. I'm not an immigrant, and I'm not scared of immigrants.

But I am scared of Trump's deliberate bigotry and hate-mongering. By recirculating vile proposals from history, he shocks us, then raises the bar on what it takes to shock us. Even when he walks back from these incendiary statements after leaders from both parties call him out, there is damage done.

Trump's campaign is normalizing ideas from the darkest chapters of our history.

It's a strange feeling to live in a state of anxiety in your own country. "Liberty and justice for all" are words I memorized as a child, and a critical part of my self-identity. Like many American kids, I learned my country's history in school, but didn't really process it until I was much older. I remember that crushing moment, and maybe you do, too -- when your beliefs were challenged and you were confronted with the extent of man's brutality toward man; the depths to which humanity has sunk and risen.

When you intimately study history, when you lose yourself in stories from the past, you recognize the alarms -- you notice when history is starting to repeat itself. You begin to play out scenarios you never imagined before.

After 9/11, I played out many of those what-ifs. I had conversations with my spouse about who would stay and who would go in the worst-case scenario of our country turning against us. I thought of a person -- a white, non-Muslim American person -- whom I would leave in charge of our assets if we had to flee.

Keep a sense of perspective, I told myself. Don't allow yourself to feel hunted. Fight the impulse that your children are at risk going to Sunday School at the local mosque. Try not to worry that your hijab-wearing mother could be an easy mark for unjust reprisals.

But I had to stay practical -- and still do. I am a well-educated writer with resources, connections and a platform. None of that insulates me from politicians who foment hysteria. My opinions and arguments are made in the public sphere. That's not a protective shield against suspicion.

In a time of war and fear, you make choices: Hide or speak out.

I choose to speak, and speak loudly.

Trump does not offend my feelings as a Muslim. Attacks on my faith slide off of me because my faith lives inside me, and no one can take away what lives inside of you.

He offends me as an American. His words are an attack on my country. Americans should be able to disagree on policy without vilifying and dehumanizing the Other.

When I went to Israel, I also visited the occupied territories of the West Bank. I have traveled all over the so-called "Muslim" world -- Egypt, Turkey, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the Emirates. Each time, I felt a sense of relief when I landed back in the U.S. The same sense of relief all travelers feel upon coming back home.

So, would I carry a special ID if Trump or someone like him tried to make me?

No.

To do so would be to dismiss all that my parents gave up to come to this country. To dishonor the sacrifices of those who have fought and died for my country's values and my freedom. To disgrace the memory of the 6 million Jews who were marked, then murdered. To forget Hinda Cohen.

I will not betray my country like that.

I will not wear a special identification that marks me as anything other than American.