I’m a thankful person.
Really. I am. It’s just
that the difficult business of life often gets in the way of me remembering
that. Or showing it. Or saying it.
It’s just that my blessed life gets bogged down by
criminals, and laundry, and dishes, and the little people in my house who
sometimes act like criminals (who keeps stealing my good kitchen scissors??)
then make me do their laundry and their dishes. My lucky existence is interrupted by the most mundane of
tasks, the most boring of chores, the repetitive nature of raising children up
to be respectable adults (and trying to maintain that whole ‘career’ thing on
the side). Wash, feed, clothe,
clean, homework, repeat. It’s
exhausting. And I’m supposed to
add. . .rewarding. This is the
part where I’m supposed to say how it’s all worth it. Every last little snotty nose, disgusting diaper, and
sleepless night pays off ten-fold at the end of the day. And I’m so grateful for it all. But truth is, most days I’m not. Most days I’m too tired to look at my
cluttered house, my demanding children and my stacks of work files as life’s
greatest blessings. I’m ashamed to
admit they are all too often just tasks to check off my list.
But then, something will remind me to snap out of it. Like a friend’s terminal illness, my
own stint in a wheelchair, or most recently, it was this. . .
That’s mom and my mother in law, Edna, three years ago at
Thanksgiving. This photos hangs in
my kitchen. And this year as I
flitted about with my hand in the business end of a turkey, and my head
spinning with a list of things to do, make, purchase, and decorate as the
holiday season lands upon me, I caught a glimpse of it. I love this picture of them. I love how happy they seem together,
caught in a moment of chatting. I
love how they unknowingly coordinated with color and pose. I love how they are sitting in my
kitchen. And I love how alive my
mother was. And I’m struck with
the void left by her death. And in
that moment, I’m grateful. I’m
grateful for her loss.
Mom’s life lesson #10 There is gratitude in loss.
Most of mom’s life lessons were taught in her grand, loud,
laugh-filled, presence. But this
one has come from her absence. For
it is her absence that has made me appreciate all that she was.
Not that I didn’t know how amazing she was when she was
here. I did. She was a hard one to ignore. It’s just
that in living my life without her, I feel grateful that I had such an amazing
person to lose. I am thankful that
her presence was so tangible, so real, so large in my life that it cannot possibly
be filled. I am so blessed to have
been so loved, so served, so led by my mother’s example, that her absence is
continually noticed.
It’s not sadness.
It’s really a measure of my joy.
The void is proof positive of how lucky I was. . . I am. . .to have been
raised by her. And when I slow down long enough to appreciate the loss, I feel
grateful, truly grateful. And I am
reminded that I really do appreciate the rest of it. Every snotty nose, every long-day at work, and every other
little moment that requires my undivided attention. Because I too want to live large, love big, and lead well so
that my children know I’m here. Really
feel it. It is in my greatest loss
that I find gratitude for all that is present.
I will inevitably get side-tracked again. I will most
certainly climb back on my hamster-wheel and let life fly by for a while. But then I will use her giant metal
bowls to make a batch of cookies, or find a note she penned for my girls on the
inside cover of their favorite picture book, or hear her words in my own
yelling voice. And I will feel her loss.
And I will be grateful again.
