By Thursday afternoon, 206 days will have passed since our kids last played the games our kids play. It was March 9. An otherwise mundane Monday, save for the beginning of the boys' basketball tournament, the signature high school sporting event in Connecticut, culminating before thousands at Mohegan Sun.

Nobody knew that night that this coronavirus thing wouldn't merely end the winter sports season the next day, but the spring season a month later. Even founding members of The Optimists' Club had a hard time spinning this one, what with sports, proms and graduations all suddenly kaput.

The refrains, borne of confusion and pain, rang frequently with words like, "what we wouldn't give." As in: What we wouldn't give to be out there one more time ... to play one more game ... to be with our teammates one more time."

As Joni Mitchell once sang rather famously, "Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you got till it's gone."

Yet now Thursday, 206 days later, the kids get to be out there with their friends again. The high school season, though delayed and modified, begins Thursday afternoon in a number of sports, despite the perils of COVID-19.

Clear, healthy perspective rarely comes without pain. There has been pain for many kids and their families who rely on sports as an outlet. Perhaps never before did parents and kids appreciate all the little details of their days around sports. And that's why Thursday needs to be embraced with all the gratitude we can muster.

Ah, gratitude. Seems in short supply. The glass isn't merely half empty, but one of those trick dribble glasses that ruins your best shirt. It's become an epidemic in a pandemic: Focus on what we don't have. It's a personal choice. But I think Oprah had it right when she said, "Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough."

And so for anyone who lamented the plight of kids in this pandemic, Thursday is a time to rejoice. Gratitude is not whining about having to wear a mask to the game. Gratitude is the existence of the game itself, the privilege you have in playing or watching it and the realization that kids and parents last winter and spring had no such ability.

Gratitude is seeing circumstances as they exist and smiling anyway. As Ledyard High School principal Amanda Fagan tweeted the other day, "There is plenty to worry about in the world, but a far better expenditure of energy is to focus on things within our immediate control. Choose to make your little life bubble beautiful."

Here is how that works:

Last weekend, the Eastern Connecticut Conference became the first league in Connecticut to offer "football activities" for the kids in lieu of an 11 on 11 season. The competition was real and the coaches and kids reveled in the privilege of returning to the field. They made their little bubbles beautiful.

Conversely, yours truly, in conveying the uniqueness of the event via Twitter, received the following tweet from a varsity coach in another conference: "I'm glad the kids are out there competing and trying to salvage this fall. I really am," he wrote, "but to try to say this even resembles football, or everything is all right, is so far from the truth."

See how that works? One group of people was thankful. One guy was miserable. I'll take the former.

Funny thing, too: The author of a book I'm reading suggested making a gratitude list. So I did. It was longer than I thought it would be. I'm even grateful for things that haven't happened yet, but I believe will. It provided some clear, healthy perspective.

Last thing: We are at The Day and GameDay understand the responsibility we have this fall. Spectators will not be able to attend away games. They will be limited at home games. Our livestreams will be life lines for some of you, beginning with Thursday's soccer game between defending state champion Stonington and Ledyard.

We love this stuff and will do our absolute best to bring you as many games per week as we can. A promotional tweet about Thursday's game from GameDay voices Casey O'Neill and Keith O'Brien inspired a response from Ledyard athletic director principal Jim Buonocore, who tweeted, "nobody better."

Much appreciated.

Normally, I'd say see you at the games. But that's not really possible this year. Let's be grateful anyway. Remember how miserable it was 206 days ago.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro