In the 1970s and ‘80s, Thanksgiving was a serious affair in my house. Dinner was served promptly at 3 p.m., coat and tie required.

My mother spent the week prior making sure everything was perfect — linen, fine china and polished silver. I can’t say it was a particularly joyous affair unless one of the visiting relatives had too much to drink.

Recollecting those times from where I stand today, I realize I wasn’t really all that thankful. There is arrogance in youth, at least there was in mine that blinded me from really understanding just how much there was for which I had to be thankful.

My epiphany came in college. I was working with the Jesuits in Tijuana. Three times a week I would make the trek across the border. I would cautiously wind my way on the dusty dirt roads into the colonias that rise in the hills above the city’s center.

My destination was Casa de los Pobres, which translates, house of the poor. My work consisted of delivering meals prepared by the sisters at the Casa to a local prison. If you ever need a little perspective, a visit to a Mexican prison will offer enough for a lifetime. It was a richly rewarding experience.

A friend of mine, John Juliano, informed me we had been invited to the home of a local matriarch, doña Maria Lopez. John was a Jesuit volunteer and was living in Mexico full time. He was connected.

Doña Lopez’s home sat near the top of the hill and afforded spectacular views of downtown Tijuana and across the border into San Diego. At night the city lights pierced the sky, looking like countless impressionists’ brush strokes shimmering in the rising heat.

The home was typical of the neighborhood. Corrugated steel covered the roof of the tiny two-room dwelling. The same wavy pattern washed across the interior ceiling. The floor was dirt and the walls a mishmash of plywood, plastic and roofing paper.

Doña Lopez, perhaps 70 at the time, waved us into her home with enthusiastic gestures and a warm smile. She embraced me, kissed me on the cheek and uttered one of the few Spanish phrases I understood at the time, “Muchos, muchos gracias, señor.”

I was taken aback. Why would this gracious woman be thanking me? I whispered my question to John. His reply still haunts me: “Because,” he said, pausing for effect. “It is a high honor for her to have you in her home. You are a white man studying at a university in America.”

That marked the beginning of a paradigm shift that would change my life forever. Doña Lopez looked at me, her gray eyes peering through weathered skin, and smiled broadly. It was time to eat.

The meal was as simple as it was delicious. We were served stewed beef with rice, beans and tortillas made fresh as we talked. She sent her grandson to buy two cokes, one for John and one for me. I motioned to refuse, knowing the sacrifice such a purchase represented. John stopped me, gently pulling my hand down. “It would be a great insult for you to refuse,” he said.

That bottle of coke remains the finest I have ever consumed, a sacred liquid blessing the meal, the company and communion that unfolded in that room. My experience was, in almost every sense, a Eucharist.

We lingered for hours, doña Lopez proudly explaining her own history and that of the surrounding neighborhoods. She was animated, proud and patient as John translated every word. She emerged as a History Channel expert for her well-trodden corner of the world.

I left, humbled and feeling small, knowing I had been in the presence of a giant. We said our reluctant goodbyes and I returned to San Diego, to the top of another, more privileged hill — the University of San Diego.

Whenever I lose sight of what is important, of those things that really matter, I like to return there. I close my eyes and let myself wander back to Tijuana, into the home of doña Lopez and relive the most profound thanksgiving meal I have ever had.

I hope your Thanksgiving is filled with many blessings, including that precious gift of perspective. In the parting words of doña Lopez, vaya con Dios.

— Tim Durnin is a father and husband. He can be reached at tdurnin@gmail.com for comments, discussion, criticism, suggestions and story ideas.