When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude. ~~ G. K. Chesterton
For the rest of November, I’m going to take for gratitude some of those things I often take for granted — an entire alphabet’s worth! Since today is the first day of this surge of gratitude, I am giving thanks for “A” things.
I am especially grateful for:
Ability to appreciate. Not just to see, taste, hear something, but to admire it, to recognize its importance and value.
Accelerators. We depend on our vehicles for important things such as going work or to the grocery store where we hunt and gather our food, but we also use them to go see sights far away. Without an accelerator, we wouldn’t be able to do anything with those vehicles except sit in them and dream of other places.
Age. Perhaps youth is wasted on the young as we are often told, but age has its place. Despite the ebbing of energy and health that age might bring, having a few decades of life behind us helps bring perspective, appreciation, perhaps even wisdom, though these things are not prerequisites for growing old. Jerks remain jerks forever, it seems. But still, I have a hunch age would be wasted on the young.
Air. Air gives us life, but it also makes us one with the world, flowing into our bodies via our lungs, and flowing out again. Deep slow intakes of air can calm us. Cool air on a hot day or warm air on a cold day brings us comfort.
Ankles make it easier to walk, to dance, to balance. Without ankles, our lower legs would be like stumps. And who doesn’t admire a well-sculpted ankle?
Arms. We take our arms for granted, but those who have lost an arm through war or an accident or illness know the value of those appendages. Even old, saggy arms are beautiful, especially when they are cradling a baby, hugging a friend, swinging loose and free when we take a walk.
What “A”s are you taking for gratitude today?
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Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.
I just now returned from a ramble in the desert, so the sadness has dissipated a bit, but all the pieces of my life are still in a heap at my feet. As the next few days progress, I’ll pick up the pieces one by one, and maybe this time the structure I build will have more permanence. Or not. No matter how good an attitude I have, no matter how much I become immersed in life-affirming activities, he is still dead and there isn’t anything I can do about it. I just have to continue on, realizing that my life has worth. I have worth.
I’ve come a long way in the three years since I wrote the following journal entry. I still don’t understand the nature of life or death. Still don’t understand the point of it all, but the questions don’t haunt me quite as much as they did during the first years after the death of my life mate/soul mate. I’m learning to live without him, learning even to want to live without him. Sometimes I see his death as freeing us — me — from the horrors of his dying, and I don’t want to waste the sacrifice he made.
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