Tag Archives: gratitude

Sunday Sweetness–Summer Is Coming

Today, Vivi asked me, “How many weeks before we clean out the pool so we can go swimming?”  I told her about two more weeks.  We’ll see.  But the question made me remember last summer, and this piece I wrote about joy and gratitude and a swimming pool.

Click into this swimming pool if you want to read the story!

swim-ring-84625_1280

Moving On

After Richard died and left our house to me in his will, many people assumed that I would be selling it.  As one friend put it, “It will be easier for you to move on with your life if you’re not still in this place.”

I didn’t want to give up our house.  Yes, it was too big for just me.  Yes, it was a lot to maintain on my own.  Yes, every corner and crook held a memory of our time together there.  But I didn’t want to give up my house.  One blazing hot July afternoon, I came home to an HVAC unit that had been struck by lightning, a green pool, and a leak in the basement.  I stomped around cussing and pouring chemicals and mopping and panicking.  I didn’t want to let myself start crying because I wasn’t sure how I would stop.  I remember glaring up at the brick face of the house as I turned the hose on and shaking my fist at it.  To be so huge, it was hugely empty–just me and three dachshunds.  That night, as I watched the Atlanta news and ate my dinner all alone in the den, the anchor introduced a story about kids who needed to be adopted.  Three siblings who hoped to stay together.  It’s hard to find a house with that much empty space–but I had one.  A part of my wretched heart opened up at that story because it dawned on me that maybe the house would give me options down the road that I wouldn’t have otherwise.  Like any gift, my house held possibilities.

kids

One of the dearest things about Richard’s gift to me is that he knew how much owning a home meant to me.  He had grown up with a home–his parents lived in the same house from the time he was in elementary school until after he was out of college.  He loved the little yellow house so much that he was furious when the next owners cut down “his” azaleas.  My childhood memories were scattered over several places–the trailer in Greenville, the brown house in Hollonville, the old plantation house, the tin-roofed house on the Circle.  By the time I was an adult, neither my mom nor my dad lived in a place where I had ever had a room of my own.  I didn’t have a childhood home to go back to.  Fartbuster and I had bought a house together, but it never felt like a place to put down roots.  I didn’t know any of my neighbors there…or my husband, for that matter.  When we divorced, I felt like I was being forced into the decision to sell.  I rented two more places on my own before Richard and I bought our house.  After he left it to me, I had a place I would never have to leave unless it was my choice.  So I chose to stay.

Within five years, all the bedrooms were full with three siblings.  Not those sweet kids from the evening news–my kids.  Yesterday, two of them and I were playing in the backyard when I witnessed something that taught me a new lesson about moving on.

The very idea of “moving on” is an illusion.  We put together our lives not by moving away from the past, but by integrating the past into the present and the future, regardless of where we might be.

bluebirdI’ve told the story before about the bluebird who appeared at our backyard wedding (A Tuesday Kind of Miracle).  Well, yesterday, as I sat in the sun and watched Vivi and Carlos playing in her wagon, a pair of bluebirds flitted out of the forsythia bushes on the far side of  the yard.  I thought I was seeing things.  One perched on the fence down by the river–in the exact spot where the wedding bluebird had sat almost nine years ago.  As I was marveling at the beauty of the bluebird–and the memory I associate with them–Carlos caught my eye and chirped, “Hello, Mommy!”  Time collapsed in my backyard as my son stood in the same place Richard and I had stood to say our vows, and called me by my new name.  Mommy.

If I had sold this house and moved in to a new place, I would have missed that moment.  I would have missed seeing my Now blend so seamlessly with my Then.  As I sat there being happy, it dawned on me that that is what HOME is–being somewhere long enough that stories have time to come back around.

Make a Resolution To Practice Gratitude

I write about gratitude a lot, and gratitude journals in particular.  Several of you have mentioned starting the practice for yourselves…so how about now?  Why not add gratitude journaling to your New Year’s resolutions?  

This week, when you’re out shopping for gifts for others, wander on over to the bookstore and buy yourself a beautiful journal.  Put it by your bed.  Each night, jot down at least 5 things that you appreciated from that day.  It doesn’t have to be a complete sentence or punctuated or spelled correctly.  This journal is for you.  

Here’s an early blog post called “Gratitude Grows” that I wrote about the stack of journals by my bed.  It’s been growing there since 2004–that explains the dust.  Richard was still alive in the bottom of the stack.  The purple one is from the year we bought this house.  The red one holds the year he died.  I met G and my children higher up.  The stack has grown by one more since I took this picture.  

gratitude fixed

Raising Grateful Children

Image converted using ifftoanyI’m got a Thanksgiving article on Work It, Mom! called “The Attitude of Gratitude” about teaching our children to practice gratitude.  Check it out!

On the day my daughter was born, I wrote seventeen things in my gratitude journal (#1 was “she is here and healthy.”  #2 was “That epidural was NICE.”)  On the day my husband died from leukemia, I wrote twenty-nine things in my gratitude journal.  That certainly doesn’t mean it was a better day; it just goes to show that there are gifts around us even in the darkest times.  The daily practice of gratitude keeps me in that state where I can receive them.

Sunday Reflection – Green Beads

green beadIt’s been a great and growing week for me.  I’d string a green bead for just about every day this week.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, flash back to this story from Baddest Mother Ever, “A Blue Bead for Boston.”

Sleep, Baby, Sleep

When it’s time to go to bed, I can’t walk past my children’s bedrooms without stopping in to check on them while they sleep.  Tonight, I took an extra moment to sit still beside them.  I rested my hand on Vivi’s chest and felt her heart tapping along beneath my palm.  Peace.  In Carlos’ room, I pushed the sweaty curls off his brow.  He stirred then sighed.  I put my hand over his heart and breathed in the quiet in his dark little haven.

There is no faster path to the present moment than feeling my child’s heart beating.

Léon Bazille Perrault [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Léon Bazille Perrault “A Mother With Her Sleeping Child,” via Wikimedia Commons

Pecked to Death By Chickens

Look, I know I’m lucky to live the life I do.  I KNOW.  Tonight, I had to change channels away from the news before Vivi saw a picture of a child killed by poison gas in Syria.  I flipped to local news where she saw coverage of the school hostage situation near Atlanta.  Nope.  A quick punch of the remote and there’s Johnny Depp as Barnabas Collins with his fangs hanging out.  I know, I know.

Then my mom guilt kicked in that I wasn’t spending 5pm-7pm doing a craft project from Pinterest with my adorable children while a healthy, balanced, organic, free range, fair trade, non-GMO, locally sourced meal from Gwyneth Paltrow’s cookbook simmered in our solar crockpot.   Nope, G was heading to pick up pizza.  Non-organic pizza because we had a coupon, dammit.  And we ate it off of Sonic the Hedgehog paper plates left over from a birthday party.

 

Evil Chicken

Evil Chicken

I know we are lucky to have money for pizza, a roof over our heads, birthday party paper plates, and a TV.  Still, today has left me spluttering.  I saw a sign once that said, “Raising children is like being pecked to death by chickens.”  It’ll kill you, but it takes a good long while.

Top Five Stupid Things That Are Eating At Me:

  1. Every surface in this house is covered in paper clutter, dog hair or crayon marks.
  2. There are five trucks on my kitchen floor.  I have to shuffle through a parking lot to not cook dinner.
  3. My son thinks that he is a siren.  He has been shrieking “WEEEEEE OH WEEEEEE OH WEEEEEE OH” for 48 hours.  Then he pauses, holds up his toy and whispers, “Fire truck.”
  4. Someone dragged sand box toys across the den and onto the sofa.  And you know what the secret prize is inside of sand box toys?  Sand.
  5. It’s always my stuff that gets broken.  This week alone:  a vase I’ve had for 15 years, some glasses that Richard loved, the finish on the dining table, and the lid to the pine toy box that my Daddy made from boards rescued from the ruins of my great-grandfather’s house.   Oh, and my spirit. That, too.

I know that in a couple of days I’ll be back in the ring and swinging.  Today, not so much.

Top Five Things That Kept Me Going Tonight:

  1. Carlos discovered the “Radio On” button on my alarm clock.  He pressed it and said, “DANCE!”  I started dancing.  He turned it off and I froze.  We did this for the entirety of “Mojo Rising.”  He just about forgot how to breathe he was laughing so hard.
  2. My friend Sara had a dead battery.  I dropped the plans I was making for not making dinner and went to help her.  I applied jumper cables successfully for the first time in my life.  A sweet boy in a Chi Omega formal shirt asked if we needed help then stood back and watched us manage fine.
  3. When we were watching Jeopardy, Vivi got a question right (Category:  Disney Villains) and she was soooo proud of herself.
  4. After bath time, I read “The Very Busy Spider” twice then snuggled Carlos for so long that the sleeve of my shirt was wet from his hair.
  5. This picture that Vivi drew at the YMCA:
"All Shall Be Loved"

“All Shall Be Loved”

All Shall Be Loved.

And I live to fight another day.  Back to the trenches!