Gratitude day #5

Is it cheating if I repeat a gratitude item? Not just for the sake of repeating it, or because I couldn't think of anything else to say, but because I genuinely find myself giving thanks for it over and over? 

Hmm... Okay, then I'll slant this one slightly, so it's not exactly the same. 

Today I am grateful for the laughter of children. There is something, some quality, in their laughter that lifts the weary soul, puts a smile on your face, that takes years off your life.

My kids played together so beautifully yesterday. They just enjoyed each other. The result was a lot of laughter. Listening to them laugh, even though we were running late, even though I didn't want to get out of bed, even though I didn't want to make them MORE breakfast, etc. etc., I could not help but smile at them, and laugh with them.

Children have such a simplistic view of the world, and it is so refreshing. It restores the soul in many ways. Couple that with laughter and you have a winning formula! I am so grateful to have e laughter of children ringing in my house. I suspect that I will suffer terribly from empty best syndrome when they go, when they grow up, and partly because I need their simplicity and their laughter to remind me that I take myself, and the world, far too seriously at times.

Gratitude day #4

Holidays are usually the time in which I get to catch up with friends I haven't been able to see during the term. Last night we had dinner with friends who were involved in a car accident about 6 weeks ago. They are both lucky to be alive (someone else died in the accident), and are both still in recuperation and booked off work.

Chatting with them about their accident, I was struck yet again how fragile life is. One moment you can be going about your normal, daily life, and the next you could be dead. 

They aren't able to drive yet, so I collected them from their place, and took them home again afterwards. Although they have always worn seat belts, they mentioned how they have developed a deeper appreciation for them.

I am grateful for the person who invented seat belts. When I think of the road deaths in SA every year, mostly caused by drunk drivers, but also by people not wearing their seat belts, particularly parents who don't strap their kids in, it makes me so cross. Such a simple little thing, but it really does save lives. One little click. (Ei only vant tu hear vaan click!)

In reflecting on our evening together, I am especially grateful that these friends are both still alive and able to spend time with us. These are people who I am learning to like more and more as we get to know them, people I think could become life long friends at a deep level, people with whom we share so much in common.

Gratitude day #3

Whenever I used to worry that I was no longer really friends with anyone from school, my mother used to tell me that true friends are rare. Friends tend to be transient, people you connect with in the here and now because of shared circumstances. The friendships may be deep, and meaningful, but when the circumstances of your lives change, your friendship may change along with it. The end result is that you no longer spend time with that friend.

Because loyalty is a trait that is deeply embedded in my personality, I struggle with this concept. I struggle with the idea that someone you love deeply, have shared deeply with, and have shared life with, would be able to just forget you, or walk away. Yet, it has happened to me. I have come to see that my mother was right, in part. Sometimes life gets in the way of remaining active friends - sometimes, with 6000 miles between you, it is really difficult to maintain a friendship.

But I still believe that someone who is a true friend is someone who will stick around despite life changes, and will make the effort to carve out time for you. This is someone who knows you so well because of a long passage of time of shared experiences that she or he can hold you accountable and speak the uncomfortable truths into your life. This is also someone who has shared your deepest and most joyful moments with you, and who has probably shared your most terrifying moments with you as well. I guess this is what many girls are trying to imply when they speak about their BFF's, but I think this term is far too frivilous to be used of a true friend.

Last night I (and my hubbie) had dinner with someone I have known for 23 years. That's a pretty long time. We dated when I was in high school for a very brief period (a few months). We lost touch while I was in the UK, but have wound up at the same church again. Despite everything, I have always had a soft spot for this person, in my heart. (Yes, my hubbie knows.) 

Over dinner we had the first really in-depth conversation we have had in years, and we took the time to fill in the blanks on a lot of stuff that happened - both before and after I moved to the UK. It was so good to connect again. It was so good to connect with someone who has known me for that long. Although there were a lot of blanks to be filled, it was so nice to have a conversation with someone about our shared experiences of 23 years ago and see how those events have played out over the years, until we find ourselves where we currently are.

I am grateful for friendships, but I am particularly grateful for the friends who have been around for a heck of a long time. I am grateful for the history we share (not in a romantic sense, but in a shared experiences sense). I am grateful for the anchoring of relationships that are not part of today's instant culture, that have taken time to build and develop, and that have matured over time. 

Friendships like this are a bit like a good bottle of wine. You can drink a 2012 wine and it will be a very nice. An excellent wine, though, needs time to mature. You can drink an excellent wine now, but if you do, you won't taste it at its best - you will miss out on various notes in the flavour that haven't yet developed, or will have discordant notes that haven't mellowed. In the same way, you can artificially create deep friendships because of shared experiences and intentional honesty/ sharing, but those friendships won't be the best they can be, because some things just can't be rushed. Some things just take time.

Gratitude day #2

My hubbie is sick at the moment. Because of being an asthmatic, any chest infection becomes a major deal. He has now spent one day in bed, and is struggling to breathe. I therefore took him off to the GP this afternoon, before this turns into something much more serious.

Listening to him breathe (or, more correctly, struggle to breathe) this afternoon was quite scary. He couldn't draw breath properly and so was doing this upper respiratory rapid breathing thing in order to get enough oxygen.

When we first got married I was sick continuously for 9 months with respiratory illnesses - 4 'flu's one after the other, bronchitis, pneumonia and finally pleurisy. It wrecked my lungs and caused my childhood asthma to recur. I remember well those nights, sleeping sitting up because if I lay down I started drowning in the fluids present in my lungs. I remember well how exhausting breathing was, and so I empathise with my hubbie.

[I eventually went to see a homeopath who gave me some Chinese herbal thing with a bizarre name (I think it was "Easy Breath" or "Breathe easy"), sent me to bed for 6 weeks (or I could have chosen to go to hospital, in which case my risk of contracting TB or some other nasty would have been sky high), and told me it would take a year to recover fully. (He was right, in the end.) Those were not comfortable years - either the year of illness or the year of recovery.]

I was reminded, this afternoon, of how sick I was back then, and how my scarred lungs have impacted on my life subsequently. Until your ability to breathe is compromised, I don't think you truly appreciate just what a blessing it is. So today I am grateful for my health. I am grateful that when I lie down tonight I will not be exhausted from the effort of trying to draw breath, that I will not have to draw breath through fluids that feel like treacle, and that my asthma is under control again.

Gratitude day #1

During the course of the day #2 and I sat and chose photos to put into the photo album. It's been such a long time since we have done this, that we had to go back to 2012! Going through 2.5 years' worth of photos there were a lot of laughs, and 'I remember that!', and 'do you remember when...?' moments. 

Reflecting on 2.5 years' growth in my children I became aware of just how much they have grown, and yet, how little they still are. The best moment of the day, though, had to be listening to my son's laughter as he reminisced. The fact that he is alive is owed to the fact that his sister died, and we discovered my blood disorder. Thus, when I was pregnant with him, I was able to take medication that saved his life.

Every time I look at him, I am reminded of the long, painful journey we walked to his birth. I am so grateful that he is in my life. If his sister had not died I would never have known him. I'm not saying that I am glad his sister died, don't get me wrong. I am just overwhelmed at the thought that, had she lived, this incredible little boy would never have been born and I would never have known him, or the joy of hope renewed.

I am grateful to God for the gift of this little person, and for the relationship we have. He brings such joy into my life and is a daily reminder to me of God's grace towards his people.

30 days of gratitude

At various points in time in I have followed bloggers who have had a gratitude meme. Memes are useful for helping when you're stuck in a rut, or when you have writer's block. Looking back over the past while I haven't blogged nearly as much as I would like. Partly that's through lack of time, and partly it's from lack of inspiration. 

Of late, every time I sit down to write something I find myself thinking that, really, no-one cares about whatever it is I was thinking about. Although this blog has replaced my journal (& so I usually write for myself, to keep track of what is going on in my life), I don't want to go back and read how mundane my life has been. I don't just want this to be a 'here's a photo of what I had for lunch' kind of thing.

What to do? I've been pondering whether to take on a meme, and if so, which one. For the past fortnight or so I've pondered a gratitude meme, mostly because I've been finding myself feeling so grateful for so many things. A blogger I follow is currently finishing up a 100 day gratitude meme. Couple that with a conversation I had with my hubbie after church today, I've decided that, if nothing else, a gratitude meme will get me blogging daily again - without feeling the need to write an essay each time.

Starting tomorrow (Mondays are such good days to start new projects, especially during holidays!) I will be on a 30 Day gratitude meme. Yes, only 30 days. I am conscious of not committing myself to something I might not be able to sustain. Feel free to join me on your own gratitude journey if you want.

On the other side...

Last week I heard a fuller version of the story of a woman I was connected with when I was at school. I haven't had much contact with her since then. Although we both married the men we were with at the time, her husband died subsequently, through cancer, leaving her with two small children.

In the telling of her story, she spoke about how she was furious with everyone for looking at her with pity in their eyes, and how she left her church as a result - to try to forge a new identity elsewhere that didn't involved her deceased husband. I was hurt by that, not that she would want to forge a new identity - that's essential. Rather, I was hurt by her anger.

I had heard her story briefly when she joined my church, and putting myself in her shoes, and having lost deeply, I sympathised with how hard life must have been with her. My eyes were filled with pity, I know. At the time, I thought she brushed me off because it was too painful to talk about. Now I realise that she brushed me off because she was furious at my pity. But I don't think she understood that my pity was born out of my own losses, at my own struggles, out of my sincere desire to help in some way.

And yet, I understand her perspective. It was so difficult having to talk to people about the loss of my children, to have to explain over and over, to see the pity or the lack of comprehension in their eyes. I hated the stupid things people said to me... I could do a whole blog post just on that!... so I do understand how overwhelming it can become, and how you avoid places where people know you because you just want them to stop.

It is odd being on the other side this time around, being the one who is causing the anger and frustration. It hurts because I thought that I was sensitive to grief, but I guess there is always more to learn.