Cultivating Gratitude

Today was J's father's funeral. The weather was perfect--the most beautiful autumn afternoon one could have wished for in any other (or maybe especially in this) context. The service was tender, lit by such sweetness and poignancy that I sniffled through its entirety, feeling sorry for J and her mom, sorry for the hole left in their lives, sorry for myself and my own experience at having lost a father and what that means. For me, my dad's loss was not having the hum of projects going on around the house, someone to cook steak on the grill and sing to James Taylor as the potatoes baked, buying junk cereal at the grocery store, or come tuck me in at night. 

I remember the last time I got tucked in by my dad. I was 16. Too old for tucking in...but then, you're never too old for having the covers securely wrapped around your legs and receiving a gentle kiss on the forehead. By this time, my dad had been sleeping downstairs in our office-converted-master-bedroom after a double hip replacement. He was using a walker, patiently swinging one leg after the other, holding on to the walker with his strong hands clenched into a tight grip, shoulders pushed up to his ears in an effort to lift himself up and forward, up and forward, tennis balls on the walker legs swishing along the floor, punctuating the slow shuffle of his movement. I'd gone up to bed hours before. In the early morning hours, I woke up to the hall light turned on and my dad's shadow coming through the doorway. He had pulled himself up stair by stair, through pain and arduous tedium to kiss his peacefully sleeping daughters good night. As he crossed the room, I remember being so struck with gratitude that he would make such a journey--one any other would have done with speed and ease, but that took him generous concentration and effort minute upon minute--just to say, "I love you. Sleep tight." It had been months and months without his presence upstairs at bed time, and I couldn't help but feel the specialness of this moment magnified by millions. As he sat on the bed, the weight of his body pushing down the edge of my mattress, I memorized his figure, willing him not to leave and wishing to always be tucked in.

In memories like these, or in those times like today, loss feels exponentially greater, leaving loneliness twisting in my gut or turning my chest into a refugee camp of melancholy. It's easy to get sucked into a place where nothing seems good. I don't like that place. I don't like sensing sadness. I also don't like sensing life moving on around me, willing me to move on and get over it and do More Important Things than dwell on misery and suffering. On the other hand, I don't think of sadness as particularly miserable, as it's really something to move through. And part of me needs to move through my sadness for J's dad's passing and my own grief over my dad's death.

There's this other realm of my life right now. There's this person I like. I talk to him on the phone and imagine having something real with him besides these conversations derived from hours together and imagining what the other is like outside of this little fantasy world we've each created for the other. Talking to him is fun, light, based in the past and in the future, but really never in the present. Today's experience requires presence and processing, and as much as I want to talk to him and process these things, I take on the role of Kate Who's Fun To Talk To (but who really wants to tell him about all of my life, my dreams, my fears, my wish for love and a need for someone to share my love with...and, well, maybe, my life with). But because we don't really know each other, I don't say too too much. I don't want to scare him away. Now that, my friends, can be lonely. Talking to someone but not having him here is lonely. That conversation, darkened by a previous experience or the mood of the moment, without acknowledging the darkness, is lonely. 

So I feel somewhat alone. 

And then, I also feel grateful. I'm glad to be alive and feeling. I'm glad I know what I'm feeling. I'm grateful for having friends who care about me and who will talk about the darkness. I'm excited for the things my life has to offer right now even if I feel absolutely overwhelmed by school and sometimes just want to give up. I'm grateful for the ability to have choice and know that if I really wanted to, I have the choice of quitting school and living this fantasy of running away to a big city and escaping in the frenzy of people and things going on outside of my day-to-day as it is here in this town. 

So I cultivate gratitude. Even in and, I suppose, especially in these moments. 

“He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.” — Epictetus

“Real life isn’t always going to be perfect or go our way, but the recurring acknowledgement of what is working in our lives can help us not only to survive but surmount our difficulties.” — Sarah Ban Breathnach