Living Gratitude ~

When my father died three years ago I lived what I have counseled so often – ‘grief will have its way with you.’ So often I have sat or walked with people in loss and offered those words. At times, I use water imagery, saying “It will hit you like a wave and you may not see it coming. Anything can set it off and it will not honor any agenda you have. It also doesn’t come with an expiration date.” Intellectually I knew it to be true and had tasted it at different times in my life. But with my father’s death, I came to know it more thoroughly. Just as losing a child comes with its own particular grief, so too, does losing a parent (and I imagine, a mate). And so, grief has had its way with me and will do so again and again. But today I awakened knowing something else just as thoroughly and it left me smiling. It turns out that gratitude, if you let it, will have its way with you too. I shared some time ago that I began a new spiritual practice at meal time. I join hands (if I am with others) and then bow my head and silently name three things for which I am grateful. I began it as a means of taking those three moments each day to be still and thankful. What I couldn’t have known was how it would alter my relationship with gratitude in life. Somehow, that intentional practice brought gratitude into my very being – the same space grief knows so well. And now, waves of gratitude hit at any time, honor no agenda, have no expiration date and when I’m lucky, I don’t even see them coming. And I am grateful ~