Gratitude for the angst
I've been blogging a lot about gratitude lately. But it's been on my mind. As I've mentioned before, my daughter has been facing a chronic illness since this summer. Just recently, her health has begun to improve (knock wood). And I find myself feeling incredibly grateful to see her stressing over homework and teen drama and the school play. As if this were the most incredible gift. And it is. And we take it for granted every single day. Our problems. We can't afford the newest technology. Or our lives are too busy. Or we have deadlines we're not sure we can meet. Gifts. Every one of them. I imagine that if my child's health continues to improve, as of course I hope and pray that it does, I'll be taking our lives for granted again in no time. And maybe that's human nature. Always looking up. At what we long for, at whom we hope to become. And maybe that's okay. Maybe that's what keeps us moving forward. As long as we don't forget to look around and give a leg up to someone who may need it.
Which is what I love about Christmastime, even though I don't celebrate the holiday. But I do love the spirit of the season. (Okay not the Black Friday mobs or the traffic that seems to grow at holiday time or the inability to find a parking space anywhere.) I love the spirit of giving that blooms this time of year, the stopping for a moment to remember that there are foster kids with no Santa to deliver gifts for them or shelters that need help serving food to the homeless or that a donation of a warm jacket or old sleeping bag could save a life.
Last year at Christmastime I found out that a dear friend was dying of cancer. Of course it made me desperately sad, and it also made me feel grateful for my family's health and well-being. But somehow that feeling of gratitude felt more academic. It wasn't until illness hit my family directly that I truly understood the depth of gratitude for the "normal", the healthy, the everything we take for granted. I generally consider myself to be a pretty empathic person. So why did it take so much for me to get to this place of understanding? And will I be able to maintain my sense of gratitude when (hopefully) we're all relatively healthy?
It's a question I don't have an answer to. I suppose only time will tell. Maybe the gratitude is one of those gifts that comes from the difficult times, one of those silver linings. Or maybe I can share it so you don't have to live through it: Take time out to be grateful for what you see as the problems in your life and ask yourself if maybe you're lucky to have them. It doesn't take away the angst that comes with having too much to do or feeling overwhelmed or wishing for more. But for me at least, it does bring a kind of peace alongside it.
Wishing you peace, love, joy and gratitude this holiday season
xo
I love this post and it's such a great reminder for me to appreciate the "normal" times in my life. I can relate to the health issues; one of my daughters started having seizures last year and we've been trying to find the right medication/dosage. The first medication caused behavioral problems. We just weaned her off it and onto a new one (which is why she probably had a seizure on Monday), and her behavior is more "normal" now. It's so nice to see her acting more like the kid she was before all this happened (though I doubt she'll ever be completely back--her brain has changed).
I wish you the best with your daughter and hope we can both remain grateful and not take our lives or the people in it for granted.
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Hi Joan, I just saw your comment. Sorry I hadn't seen it sooner. It's so hard when they're suffering, isn't it? A friend of a friend of mine has a daughter that started having seizures last year. When they were trying to figure out the meds, it seemed really awful, it felt to the mom as though her daughter had been given a death sentence, that she would never live a normal life. She was afraid to even let her walk down the block by herself. But once they got it all figured out, her life did actually become normal again. She's been traveling and involved in school and normal teen drama once again. I kept reminding myself of this while we were trying to find the right medicines for my daughter. It helped remind me that things really can change for the better, that each day is its own. I wish you all the best with your daughter, too. Thank you so much for your comment. Here's to gratitude, health, and joy in the new year! xo
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