Thanksgiving : Hostage’s Son Shares Prayer and Dinner at a Convalescent Home

Alice Hoffman is a person who knows what Thanksgiving means, that it is the time Americans give thanks for their lives and blessings. She enjoyed her Thanksgiving dinner atthe Hy-Lond Convalescent Home in Westminster where she is confined.

There was a very special guest at Alice Hoffman’s Thanksgiving table this year, but the limelight of the event didn’t seem to detract from the thankfulness that she and other residents showed for life itself.

That guest, Eric Jacobsen of Huntington Beach, whose father is being held hostage in Beirut, had never met the residents of the Hy-Lond Convalescent Home until a few months ago. Last summer, a few weeks after David P. Jacobsen was kidnaped near the American University’s hospital where he was the administrator, the elderly residents of Hy-Lond decided to have a daily prayer on his behalf. The prayers, the residents say, will not stop until Jacobsen is released unharmed.

Then on Aug. 29, the 99 residents turned prayers into action when they helped organize a “Freedom Day of Prayer” at the Westminster Civic Center that included a military salute to the hostages and the planting of seven rose bushes in their honor.

In his pre-dinner prayer, Eric Jacobsen made his new-found friends aware of his feelings for them. He told them about “your spirit showing through to us” during his time of trial and worry over the well-being of his father. While his father is held captive, Eric Jacobsen also gave thanks for his blessings. He wished for “a news blackout on me today,” but that didn’t happen. But those with Jacobsen on Thanksgiving were able to witness the special love that some of the elderly residents of the convalescent home hold for him.

Besides his best wishes for his friends, Jacobsen expressed his appreciation with his shy smile.

Genevieve Peters, 91, one of Hy-Lond’s residents, was confused by some elements of the day. She only knew she was chilled by the draft seeping through an open window.

The meaning of the special guest and Thanksgiving seemed sadly lost to her, but in words somewhat difficult to understand, she contributed a special thought to the gathering: “It is better to try and get along with everybody . . . than to worry about it.”