An Attitude of Gratitude

“Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity: It must be produced and discharged and used up in order to exist at all.”
—William Faulkner

My practice of gratitude goes back more than a decade. I cannot remember what first piqued my interest in it - an article or news story on TV - but I knew that I needed to intentionally experience gratitude daily.

 I started writing down three things in my journal or my date book. I was specific. I would not write: my kids, my health, my job. Instead, I would jot down "Had a funny conversation with Emma about her teacher." "Felt good after pushing myself to walk briskly for 15 minutes." Or "had fun training the new hospice volunteers."

 I have done this almost every day for years. I’ve tried to live the Vietnamese proverb “When eating fruit, remember the one who planted the tree.” I have even gotten into a weird habit. After I take a shower, I think about the people who made it possible. Sometimes I think about the engineers who keep our municipal water clean. Other times I think of the plumber who laid the pipes in my house, or the factory workers who made my soap.

A gratitude page from my bullet journal

 I honestly credit it for helping me stay out of the deep cycles of anxiety and depression I have experienced throughout my life. And there are now studies that connect counting your blessings to improved sleep, better relationships, and lowered risk of heart disease. (NOTE: Gratitude is not a magic wand. You STILL have to do your best to get to bed early, communicate with your loved ones and not just eat junk food. And if you are suffering from depression or anxiety, seek professional help.)

 However, there was one month, July 2019, that truly showed me how important gratitude is. On the 8th, I got the call that my father was seriously ill, maybe dying. I was out with friends at my birthday dinner in Pennsylvania. I immediately left and drove to NYC. Over the next month I spent much of my time at the hospital, watching him die.  It was heart-breaking. It was so frustrating to see someone you love suffer, and not be able to stop it.

But I also found a number of moments of joy that I attribute to my gratitude practice.

On that first drive up I said to myself, "Thank goodness the weather is good and I'm not trying to speed up there in torrential rain." That thought cheered me - and shocked me. I realized that I had completely integrated gratitude into my thought patterns. The years of practice had definitely trained those neurons to find some element of appreciation even in the worst circumstances.

Over the next 27 days, I had other gratitude moments, too. I had long conversations with cousins I had not seen in years. I took walks in the hospital's neighborhood and found beautiful flower gardens. There was a farmers’ market where I could buy fresh baked brownies. The hospital had stations where you could refill your water bottle with flavored fizzy water. I looked at the faces of the healthcare staff treating my father and they were all so beautiful. I don't mean magazine-cover beautiful, but that inner beauty that shines through. That's what I saw when I looked at them.

But the best one happened at about 3am one night in mid-July. There were many of us who just camped out in the large cardiac ICU waiting room for days at a time. One evening I was thankful that I had scored a padded recliner that I could "comfortably" sleep in. OK it wasn't that comfortable, but I was exhausted from working as many days as I could and driving back and forth between New York and Pennsylvania. I did not so much fall asleep as lose consciousness.

Then something woke me. I opened my eyes and saw a woman, about my age, another fellow camper who had been keeping watch over her gravely ill son. She was tucking me in. She said I was shivering, so she found a blanket and covered me. My heart just about cracked open with gratitude.

These experiences of thankfulness did not make my father's death any less terrible. We lost so much with him. But the moments grounded me. They kept me from losing myself.  They connected me to my values and to my people.

 Recently I have developed a new habit of gratitude that is partially inspired by my father. It rarely happens, but ever so often I have trouble falling asleep. I had one of those nights recently. I remembered my father playing his guitar for us kids. He was singing a Bing Crosby song form White Christmas, “I Fall Asleep Counting My Blessings.” So I stated with the letter A, apple-scented air freshener. B, sesame bagels. C, Carl gives the best hugs. I fell asleep somewhere between J and I.

“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.” – Thornton Wilder, The Woman of Andros

Remember to create, celebrate, and gather.

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