Gratitude: Part V - Love

Today is the day that we come together and give thanks for what we have. And the thing that I have in abundance - the thing that political strife and economic turmoil and absolute tragedy can't take away - is love. Just that. Just love. And I am grateful beyond measure for love.

For the love of my family...whom I have grown closer to and come to appreciate more than I ever have in my life. I cherish them and see them, as with fresh eyes, for the immense blessing that they are. They are the cornerstones that keep me grounded, that support me, that I always, always come back to.

For the love of my friends...whom I have relied on for strength and comfort and peace in the past nine months. You have been the eyes reading my thoughts and the ears hearing my words and the arms that have gone around me when there was simply nothing to say. You have shown me the meaning of true friendship - in the worst of circumstances - you have risen to the occasion to humble me with your love.

For the love of my work...which has given me constancy during turbulence. I don't like to say too much about my job on the blog, but I will say that the company has embraced me and helped me hold it together when my whole life was flying apart. I get to do what I love, and I get to do it with people I love. On Tuesday, the Big Boss was in the ATown office, and he hugged me and said, "I'm so thankful for you." And I am thankful for a job where I am loved.

For the love of words...how they have sustained me through the darkest times. Even when I thought I was speechless, struck dumb by the wholly unexpected tragedy, I found words. And unleashed, those black marks against white inked out all that was seizing my heart and mind. Words, words, words. I thank God for the blessing of words, my friends when I am in need. How I love words...in some ways, I had almost forgotten.

For the love of God...no, really. For the Peace that Passes All Understanding, for a faith that has given me a Rock upon which to stand, for prayers that have been heard, for the comfort that has been given.

For the love of love...for the recognition that love is what is healing me. Love is what is keeping me from falling apart, what keeps me from being afraid of the dark. Love is what I can offer to my sister, to the rest of my family. Love is the only thing that I can give back to those friends who have been there for me. Love can be given in words, expressed to those who need it. Love is the embodiment of the God who loves me.

Thank you, Love.

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all.

Gratitude: Part IV - Life & Death

This year, death shredded our lives into tiny pieces. Death, when it happens so close to you, when you touch it with your very hand, causes a fracture. And ironically, it's this fault line created by death that defines the life that goes on. For us, there is only before Ronnie died and after. Soon, we will mark a year since his passing, one layer of bedrock laid. And shortly after that, we'll welcome a new life into our family. But even as new life joins us, there's no way to erase the strata of pain, sorrow, loss and absence that have fossilized since his death.

But there is a way to see that alongside death, there are signs of life worth noting. There is the way the family banded together and is stronger for it, from the strength that comes from carrying one another through this. There is friendship - the arms reaching out from near and far to carry me through this when I needed more than I even knew. From afar, through emails and phone calls and blog comments and cards and prayers, my friends reached out to me and staunched the bleeding. There is humanity - the unbelievable generosity of the human spirit...the kindness that arises from tragedy. The unification of strangers by the realities of the human condition - death is something we all face. I'll never forget the 14-year-old boy, a son of one of the lunchroom workers at Anna and Ronnie's school, who came to the visitation and stood in line with his mother in his shirt and tie and called me "m'am" and told me he'd like to give me a hug because I looked like I needed one. And that's the kind of thing - no matter how painful death is - that makes this life one to be grateful for.

Gratitude: Part III - Oneness

Right now is marking the longest I've been single since I was 19. Somewhere along the way, after my first "serious" boyfriend in college, I became a serial dater. I flowed from one relationship to the next without taking a pause to breathe. A decade of continuous relationshipping - ten years in which I grew and changed but didn't have a lot of time to myself.

I know I complain about it. I worry over it. I self-deprecate endlessly about it. My oneness. And while it's true that I have to live with it, that I have to find out that, yes, one is the loneliest number, it's taught me a lot about myself. I mean, when it's just me, myself and I, the pickings are slim.

I often lament the depth with which I feel things when it's sadness or pain. But it's that depth that gives me something to balance against when the good comes along. Like a see-saw, what goes down must come up. So I'm learning to think of this all relatively...that the oneness and all its trimmings - the loneliness, the awkwardness, the grumpiness, the sadness - give me such a strong perspective on being single that when I finally find a match (assuming there's one out there?) it'll be something spectacular. Or so I tell myself.

But for now, I'm thankful for my oneness. That in myself, I've finally found someone I want to spend the rest of my life with.

Gratitude: Part II - Calm

"I just got lost. Every river that I tried to cross. Ever door I ever tried was locked. Oh, I'm just waiting till the shine wears off." --Coldplay, "Lost!"

I was a stranger in my own mind, divided between the thoughts that made sense and the thoughts that interfered with all reason and rationale. The interlopers stung me, numbed the parts of my brain I needed and activated other parts so dark and murky that I was lost.

But I have once again befriended reason and become acquainted with rationale. Those parts of my brain that slumbered have shaken off their lethargy and began to glow again. There is light; there is hope.

Beyond just feeling better, I am filled with calm. This past week, I was in a situation that should have had me shaking in my shoes, but instead, I felt utterly peaceful and unmoved. As though I had reached a different mental plateau, one from which it was easy to look down and see the insignificance of what was below and look ahead and see all that was before me and embrace it. Rather than falling off a cliff, I am reaching for higher ground with full confidence that my feet will find the right footing.

Rather than pleading for the storm to be calmed, I am the calm in the storm.

Gratitude: Part I - Belonging

For so long, I felt like a ship adrift, having untied my moorings and sailed into different waters. Though I found a harbor, it was difficult to drop anchor. It seemed that I would throw it over the side, only to find it weightless and futile. An anchor with no gravity. A ship with no way to hold.

I stubbornly stayed in the harbor though, convinced that I had followed the right currents, that I had read the map correctly, that I had found the waters where I could finally fold up my sails and put my weary soul to rest.

And while I had one myopic eye to the telescope looking into the distant future and trying to spot that solid ground that I longed for, slowly but surely my anchor gained gravity. Ounce by ounce, it grew heavier. One by one, those whose names I knew become those I knew. The husks of acquaintance were stripped away to reveal the meat of friendship.

On Friday, I passed through the Atlanta office on my way back home. Two women came surging from one of the hallways and one said, "I told her I heard your voice!" This welcome, this recognition of me, was a reminder that I am home in more ways that I even acknowledge. There are a multitude of places I can consider myself among friends (including here), and I think of those places and faces and I am astounded; I am overwhelmed by their surprising numbers - more than I would've guessed at first thought - and I am touched by the depth of feeling for this motley crew of people I've collected. Without realizing it, my skeleton crew has evolved into a tour de force.

My anchor has grown heavy but my heart has grown light. So I throw gravity overboard, and climb down to the solid ground where I belong.

Adopting a New State of Being

gratitude: the state of being grateful; warm and friendly feeling toward a benefactor; kindness awakened by a favor received; thankfulness.

Gratitude, I think, is a natural response, a genuine feeling that springs up without effort in the wake of a gesture of kindness. Thankfulness - or Thanksgiving, if you will - is more intentional. It's a deliberate pause to express the gratitude you feel. For most of us, that's by the words "thank you" - the Pavlovian utterance dictated by the good manners instilled in us by our parents. Someone gives you something, and a little voice in your head prompts, "What do you say?'

Gratitude comes quickly and easily when a gift, a compliment or a favor are exchanged. It's omnipresent alongside selflessness. And miracles. And good times.

But what about the difficult times? The times in life that not only fail to provoke gratitude, they ignite the counter emotions of resentment, anger and frustration. In these times, the absence of gratitude make it nearly impossible to be thankful. Without the automatic response, the active response is forgotten. Without the inspiration of warm, benevolent feelings, how can one conjure up the energy to express them? And what would they be for?

The past year has been one of the most difficult of my life. Full of mental turmoil. Loneliness. Fear. Sorrow. I have fought my own demons. I have battled my own grief - all-consuming, heartbreaking grief - and I have borne the grief of others. I have lost love; I have lost loved ones. As calendar turned to November, I confess, I felt that Thanksgiving was going to be quite the ironic exercise. Thanks, but no thanks.

But the truth is - in spite of all I've lost and all I've endured - I have so many more blessings than I could ever imagine. For all of the things that are absent, there are so many more that are present in abundance.

Each day this week, I will be offering reflections on those blessings. I hope that by listening to that little voice and prompting myself to say "thank you," I'll inspire an ongoing state of gratitude, an acknowledgment of the reasons I have to be thankful.

Thank You: Part Two

I have possibly been usurped in greatness by Aunt Anna who allowed
Dillon to clean up the Cool Whip spatula when she was done with it.
And yes, his shirt does say, "Baby's First Thanksgiving." And the sleeve says, "Gobble."

Thanksgiving included quality time with all my nephews - four-legged variety included.
Eli and I caught a break on the kitchen rug.

Laura asked me the other night how old Dillon is. I said ten months. She said, "Oh, so he's not very fast yet." Enter the Elmo walker. He can make tracks. And get very agitated when he runs into the fireplace.

Three generations of the family - something to be thankful for.

Thank You

* Family, for letting me live at home, for understanding the place I'm in, for trying hard to recognize that I am different than I was, for loving me even when they don't understand me, for supporting me and being there.

* Friends, for knowing when to ask how things are and when not to, for calling and emailing to check in, for reminding me that -whether here or elsewhere - they are there for me, for encouraging me to do what I need to do, for telling me I'm not crazy, for making me laugh

* Rain, which fell fast and hard this morning making puddles, which I hadn't seen in months

* Good books, which take me anywhere I want to go, and writing, in which I can take myself anywhere I want to go

* Health, both the kind The Medicine seems to be giving me and the general kind - I really do forget just how lucky I am

* Kudzu, dear sweet furry toilet-paper-strewing creature who warms my heart

* Dreams, the kind that entertain me - sometimes inform me, scare me, thrill me - while I sleep and the kind that give me hope for the future, anticipation of what Could Be.

* Today, it's all we get. All we're promised. I recently heard someone say that worry is using today's energy to carry tomorrow's burdens. I should pay heed to that advice. Say thanks today. Say I love you today. Laugh today. Eat well today - make sure you have dessert.

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all.

Giving Thanks

I've been somewhat overcome by the "woe is mes" over the past few months. And it's true that I haven't been feeling up to snuff for a greater part of that time. But lately, through six degrees of separation or less, I've been touched by some tragedies that remind me what a delicate balance life is. A friend lost a baby at eight months - a baby boy he was excitedly expecting. And Vesta lost a very dear friend, who was also a person for whom I held great affection. And then today, I found out one of my new friends from the Atlanta office lost her father last night.

The office visited the hospital today as a service project to celebrate the Thanksgiving season. We were providing lunch to the nurses and staff on the oncology unit. The Boss and I went to visit one of the patients: an 86-year-old blind woman whose breast cancer surgery site had become infected. And she was hoping to go back to the nursing home for Thanksgiving. She had no real family to speak of, but she told us that she was doing alright for 86. She said she still had her mind and her independence and she was doing real good and she was blessed.

Later in the day, one of the patients called the office to thank us for the leave-behind goodie bags which included a hand-crafted paper-and-yarn turkey made by The Violinist.

A few words and a paper turkey are blessings to some. And I should remember that - when I focus too much on the challenges and forget to be gracious about the opportunities, the good things...the moments I slip away from disaster or illness or even death without even know it. All those moments when all I see is cloud and just behind is a beautiful silver lining.