My Life Heroes

 The words highlighted in my photographs, these are the obvious reasons to be thankful.

But my personal heroes are those of you out there, and you know who you are, who have managed to find something to be thankful for in the midst of life's greatest sorrows and hardships. This post is dedicated to you.

Divorce. Cancer. Death. Financial Ruin. Chronic Pain. 

Those are not words we usually associate with gratitude.

But my life heroes have found a way to link them together. They have found the true secret to life.  

 If you were to come to my house right now you would see a sign that hangs over my door that says

, "There is always, always, always something to be thankful for." 

I believe this is true.

  

Do you believe this is true?

It may be a hard, but beneficial exercise in your life to search, seek out, dig deep, discover,what it is you can be thankful for even on your worst day.

Next time it seems nothing is going your way sit down and try to think of what you can be thankful for even in the midst of the hardship you might be going through.

                                                 

I'm talking about the everyday beauty that is all around us. Every one of us is surrounded by these small tokens. The fact that you woke up this morning with breath in your lungs is a gift. Most of you stood on your feet, and if you were like me you walked to the bathroom to go pee and then made some coffee. But there are those of you out there who couldn't get out of bed this morning, at least not on your own, and still you woke with joy and excitement for life. These are the select few who see the colors that explode on the canvas of life only because they are looking.

Are you looking?

    

The sound of silence.

The kindness of strangers.

The devotion of family.

The warmth of laundry right out of the dryer.

The choices at the grocery store.

Clean water, fresh and icy cold right out of your kitchen sink.

The innocence of children.

The soft feel of fur.

The playful way of a pup.

The unconditional love of pets.

 

What is an unlikely circumstance that you have managed to conjure up the ability to be grateful for?

A forewarning is due here, my answer might be sad but reference the above photo that says, My Fab 4 for the silver lining.

When My Giant and I first decided to have children we lost our first child to a miscarriage. What I was able to finally be grateful for from that experience was the preciousness of life.

That we all start out the same way. 

Precious Life.

That there are so many things that can go wrong in pregnancy. 

Precious Life.

That labor and delivery is something that happens everyday, every hour, every minute, every second. 

Precious Life.

Life is a miracle.

Yes, that experience taught me the miracle of life, and I will be forever grateful for that deep, deep knowledge.

And now I will leave you with this:

I have been saving this quote to pair it with an apple tree post in the fall, but it just seems so perfect now for this post. I hope you enjoy this savored quote, as much as I have.

"Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearnings. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on Earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could." —Louise Erdrich

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