“Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.- ” Thich Nhat Hanh

 

 GRATITUDE

I’ve just started a decades old project at the suggestion of my daughter.  Scrapbooking my pictures of my magical two months in Italy and France from TEN years ago.  That little Sneaky Pete daughter of mine I’m sure had an ulterior motive. Either: a) Just the practice of designing and laying out a page and doing something creative would show that elusive Muse I miss her and want her to come home. Or,  b) Help pass the time while I sort out how/if I want to continue with this forced retirement. Or, c) Remind me to focus on how immensely blessed my life has been and get cracking on living and breathing the kind of gratitude I had a decade ago.  

No matter the reason, I am now having a ball enjoying long walks down memory lane and feeling the

emotion that accompanied my trip of lifetime.  I can close my eyes and remember how awed I was to stand before Monet’s Water Lilies Collection and discover they weren’t 16x20 size like the knock-off I have at home, rather, massively long landscape canvases stretched across a pure white Museum wall.  I recall the exhilaration of parasailing in Nice, France and getting dunked into the French Rivera. And, standing in Cathedrals at the tombs of the great Masters of Religion, Architecture, Art, and Science sparking my imagination and offering up their stories. My most profound experience on the trip, was the memory of walking

around the tomb of St. Francis, my hand outstretched towards the circular  stone and iron monument.  As I moved around the tomb, I felt a mysterious vibration and goose bumps popped up all over my body. I was stunned into silent reverence and left there imprinted and changed.    You can see his tomb here and read the story of his burial.

https://churchpop.com/2016/10/04/the-mystery-of-the-hidden-tomb-of-st-francis-of-assisi/.

Beginning the project of putting in order over 15,000 digital images and then remembering where I was; which cathedral, museum, or site has been a great adventure in itself.  It’s forced me to pore over my journal, souvenirs, and do internet searches on the history.  This has to be good for my much older brain!  

Mixed in with those trip photos are images of my grand-

daughters through the years; parties, day trips, much smaller vacations, and holidays.  How could I not smile and be reminded of my very blessed life?  I’ve spent far too much time over the last few years healing from too many surgeries, regretting being forced into retirement of sorts, and feeling sorry for myself.  It’s become apparent, especially this past year, the missing key that drove my delight in life and trust in God.  Gratitude.

Gratitude changes an attitude and allows us to see the sacred moments.  

I started to recall some of the most devastating events of my life, times when gratitude seemed impossible, but somehow, with God’s help, I eventually uncovered it.  When my mother died, far too young, I was intensely angry.  I loved her so much despite the fact her alcoholism resulted in a very chaotic, toxic childhood for my brother and I.  However, seven years before she died, she found recovery.  I discovered gratitude for being able to get to know a sober, bright, funny, caring,

and GRATEFUL mother.  She was a gem.  When my  39 year old husband died after an 18 month battle with cancer, for a time, all meaning in my life seemed destroyed.  Miraculously the end of that same year, my daughter and son-in-law announced they would be presenting me with my first grand-child.  The gratitude for that great blessing led me to see how lucky I was to have found the love of my life and enjoyed him for the ten years of our relationship. 

That time was magical, and I now recognize that we were given so much more in our limited number of years than most couples experience in the lifetime of their marriages. That gratitude heralded in two more lovely grandchildren.  Oprah Winfrey often says, “The more thankful I became, the more my bounty increased.  That’s because, for sure, what you focus on, expands.  When you focus on the goodness in life, you create more of it.” 

This scrapbooking project has become the watering can to grow my gratitude.  It was still there, just  hidden beneath the mud I’ve been wallowing in. It’s beginning to break

ground, and revealing signs of life.   I used to complain back in the day of long hours of working, sometimes two jobs, attending school full time, and keeping up a monster house on my own, I didn’t have enough time to do so many of things I had loved when I was a young mom - writing, sewing, cooking, crafting, reading, exercising, and yes, even scrapbooking.  I’m a sucker for photographs. 

I heard a voice reminding me of that and the whisper that followed, saying, “Good grief, lady. Watch what you pray for.

I have given you a great gift these past three years - TIME. And, the resources to take care of your needs.”  That’s another mystical gratitude story for another day.

I’m trying.  Somehow I sense gratitude’s even more important in these senior years, when the body, mind, and finances start diminishing.  However, I can be grateful for the surgeries to ease the pain, online games to keep my mind sharp, and the economy for greatly improving making jobs plentiful.  I only have to be retired if I want to be.  Most of all, I am grateful for the time which has allowed me to do so many of things I love.  And, for my deceased husband’s love in leading me to his Social Security until I do decide to retire, and apply for my own!  Who knew?

I’m also considering going blonde again.  Look at my smile in these photographs! I think it might be true.  Blondes do have more fun! 

Let gratitude be the pillow which you kneel to say your nightly prayer.  

Maya Angelou