Tag Archives: gratitude

Spring Calves

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Spring Calves

Early workday morning
Driving the edge
Between city and country.
Houses on my right
Pasture on my left,
My mind a list of things
Still not done, with
More to do, in the
Moment of dawn when the
Kiss of sunlight and dew
Blinds with its brilliance,
I saw them.

They charged into my day
These two whitefaced cherubs
With little more than a month of
Living behind them, and my heart
Kicked and cavorted with these two,
My face springing, spreading into
The smile of a child full of
Herself and of life. 

The day no less
Hectic because of the
Dance we shared, my
Step would stay lighter,
My smile longer, held
By the image of
Two spring calves.

Perhaps a harried, weary
Traveler will find his
Rest as he discovers babies
Napping in the noon
Sun like two small blankets
Wrapped ’round a sleeping child. 

As for me, I’m glad
I saw you greet the dawn.

© Paulann Condray Canty, 1991 

Kindness plus one…

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I don’t know Ryan Garcia.  But, Ryan Garcia is my hero.  He’s not my hero because of his work.  He’s not my hero because he lives in Chicago, even though I love the windy city.  He is my hero because of what he chooses to do every day.  Ryan Garcia is a bright light in a world of anger, cruelty, and disregard.  In a world where the daily news is filled with caustic campaign rhetoric, sports figures getting a bonus for purposefully injuring an opponent, and soldiers are slitting the throats of 12 year olds, Ryan Garcia is a quiet, steady force of goodness moving through each day.

Ryan and his wife gave birth to a daughter in 2011.  As the new year approached, Ryan observed, “My daughter is 3 months old.  She is starting to become more and more aware of her surroundings.”  He thought about who he wanted to be as he lived out 2012,  in front of his little girl.  That’s when the idea came to him,…366 Random Acts of Kindness.  One act of kindness for every day of the upcoming leap year.  He began a blog to record his journey, writing, “I just hope that she can see this in the future and try and emulate it.”

For the last 75 days, Ryan Garcia hasn’t missed a day of choosing to do an act of kindness.  He has handed out free hugs on a Chicago street, written a letter to a soldier in Afghanistan, complimented 25 strangers, and cleared the snow off all the cars on his block after a snow storm.

He thought about suspending his plan on Day 61, when his father-in-law died unexpectedly.  Then he remembered the caring and compassionate man his father-in-law was, and knew that one of the best ways to honor him was to continue.  So he extended acts of kindness as he comforted his family, helped with household chores for his mother-in-law, and wrote his father-in-law’s obituary.

I hope it is now no mystery why I think Ryan Garcia is a hero.  He is giving the best gift a father can give to a daughter,…a sure and steady path to follow, and a clear picture of what a good man looks like.  And who knows how many of us will be changed by his giving.  Thank you, Ryan Garcia.

Show and Tell

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Adults tell children.  Makes sense, doesn’t it?  It’s our job as parents, teachers, grownups in a community.  We’re supposed to teach them right from wrong, how to be responsible, how to make good decisions, how to succeed as they make their way in the world.  We know it is our job to tell them how to do what they’re supposed to do.

Adults show children.  That’s more complicated.  Most of us have had the chance to learn how much easier it can be to “say” what to do, than it is to “show” what to do.  If we are going to show what our children need to see, we must become good observers of our own behavior.  The less we know ourselves, the greater the risk that the subtle, and not so subtle messages in our actions may speak louder than what we’re telling a child is of value.  The task of telling and showing children how to be sometimes meshes well, and sometimes leaves us in a “do as I say, not as I do” moment.  Even in a moment of contradiction we have the opportunity to tell and show our children how to go back and make it right.  How to face ourselves and adjust our behavior.  How to grow toward congruence.

We tell and we show.  We’re the grownups.  They’re children.  They listen.  They watch.  They follow.  All true.  But what if there is more to the story?  What if our teaching relationship with children is part of a multi-lane highway system instead of a single lane, one way street?

It was cold and drizzling rain this morning as I began my day.  A day of being in and out of the wet, cold weather. Alone in the car I began to grumble about the unpleasant weather, planning ahead for how cold and miserable I would be as the day wore on.  And suddenly she was there in my head.  A little girl, holding an umbrella, running in the rain…, laughing.  You may remember her from And we begin…, running, laughing, umbrella in hand.  She was there in my head, reminding me how to celebrate a rainy day.

Then I began to think of all the children, my own two and beyond, who have been my teachers.  Children who showed me how to call it what it is, including the elephants in the living room.  Kids who showed me how to be honest when I’m afraid, to try something new when I’m uncertain, to laugh at myself, to push through a hard task. Kids of all ages who have shown me what generosity, tolerance, and empathy look like.  I spent a cold, wet, dreary day smiling with gratitude each time I thought of the kids who have taught me.  Glad that teaching and learning live on a two way street.  Determined to be an authentic teacher and a good student.

“Kids:  they dance before they learn there is anything that isn’t music.”
                                                                                             ~ William Stafford

After a harsh winter…

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No holiday should be a time of sorrow, a place acquainted with grief.  Certainly not Thanksgiving.  There is nothing in the name that suggests loss.  It’s a time to gather with family and friends.  A time to “give thanks”.  Who wants to give thanks for loss or difficulty?  Nevertheless, we are faced with the reality that Thanksgiving is experienced in a context that includes hardship and tragedy.

I’ve thought a lot about the marriage of gratitude and grief during this Thanksgiving holiday.  Maybe it was writing the series of posts about loss.  Maybe it was spending time with three generations of family. Maybe it was attending the funeral of a friend  two days after Thanksgiving.

I decided to revisit how this holiday came to be, so I googled “Thanksgiving”.  A sentence caught my eye.

“The first American Thanksgiving was celebrated in 1621, to commemorate the harvest reaped by the Plymouth Colony after a harsh winter.”

On that first holiday they gave thanks for the bounty of the harvest, “after a harsh winter.”   Their celebration was based on having survived a season of hard work, tragedy, and loss.  They gave thanks for the gift of plenty.  They gave thanks for the discovery of their own strength and resilience through difficulty.

President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of thanks in October, 1863.  A day of giving thanks, in the midst of the Civil War.  What was there to be thankful for in a time of such internal turmoil?  How could we be grateful in the face of so much destruction and death?  Perhaps Lincoln hoped that a day of Thanksgiving might remind us of our connection rather than all that divided us.  That our strength and resilience might unite us once more.

It seems that Thanksgiving has always been about gratitude in the midst of loss.  Gratitude for the gift of time, of health, of relationship.  John Claypool came to understand gratitude “after a harsh winter,” when his ten year old daughter died of leukemia. In the midst of his grief he realized that he had never been promised a span of time with her.  That each year had been a gift.  He began to move from anger that he had been robbed of a lifetime with her, to thanksgiving for every unpromised moment shared over those ten years.  Claypool discovered the gift of his own resilience.  Grounded in the strength that comes from adversity, he made his way beyond his own winter of grief to a place of healing gratitude.

What if our clearest moments of resilience and strength are mined from the landscape of our disappointments and tragedies?  What if the key to discovering these gifts is our willingness to fall into the abyss of our grief.  Psychology Today, Psych Basics, notes that,

“Resilience is that ineffable quality that allows some people to be knocked down by life and come back stronger than ever. Rather than letting failure overcome them and drain their resolve, they find a way to rise from the ashes. Psychologists have identified some of the factors that make someone resilient, among them a positive attitude, optimism, the ability to regulate emotions, and the ability to see failure as a form of helpful feedback. Even after a misfortune, blessed with such an outlook, resilient people are able to change course and soldier on.”

What does it mean to “soldier on”?  I don’t think it means being an untouchable stoic who never falters, never sheds a tear.  I think to “soldier on” may mean that we continue to rise in all our faltering, tearful, uncertain, grieving humanness. Continuing to rise again, and again, until we find a new balance.

J.R. Martinez began to “change course and soldier on” a long time before he won Dancing With the Stars.  After his win, he received a note from US Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta that read:

“Your strength and spirit captivated the nation, and your victory sends a strong message about the strength and resilience of our wounded warriors.”

In reality, we are all wounded warriors, struggling to soldier on after our own harsh winter, to a place of thanksgiving.  I hope as you sat with loved ones at your Thanksgiving table, you received the gift of strength and resilience that comes after surviving a harsh winter with grief and gratitude.

More than you’ll ever know.

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Trivia is intriguing.  Trivia couched in a story becomes less trivial and more about “fleshing out” a person or situation.  I knew Brian May played lead guitar for Queen.  I didn’t know he also held a PhD in astrophysics.  I discovered that piece of trivia listening to the story of how in 2007, a Dutch school teacher discovered “a great, green blob floating in space”.  She knew very little about astronomy but while looking on Brian May’s website, followed a link to Galaxy Zoo photos, where she made the discovery.

What interests me about this bit of trivia has nothing to do with astronomy and very little to do with Brian May.  It has to with drawing conclusions based on partial information, making assumptions.  The moment I learned that Brian May has a PhD in astrophysics I realized “again” how often I assume that all I know about a person is all there is to know.  I thought of how easy it is to forget that people have a history of experiences and stories that precedes my stepping into their lives, and how that view may limit my definition of who they are.

Marie Hughes was one of the sweetest people I have ever known.  She seemed almost too nice to be real.  I knew Marie had been married for a long time to Luther, a gentle, pleasant man in spite of having been a POW during the Vietnam war.  Over time I think I began to assume that only someone incredibly innocent could be that sweet, a 20th century Pollyanna.  If Marie had reached her senior years with innocence intact, then I had to conclude she hadn’t felt the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”.  I think I began to see Marie as sweet, and diminished.

I was facilitating a women’s book discussion group which Marie attended regularly.  One night the discussion focused on how we live in spite of difficult life experiences and loss.  That night I learned how much I didn’t know about Marie Hughes as she told us about her first husband, a railroad worker who was killed on the job, leaving her a young, widowed bride.  She described her devastation and grief, how empty and lost she felt, how she didn’t think she could go on.  She told us how her father’s strength helped her and what a godsend it had been when she met Luther and they began to build a life together.  I was stunned. Marie was still one the sweetest people I had ever known, but she was no longer untested, and she would never be diminished to me again.

Tracy Kidder wrote about life in a nursing home in his novel, Old Friends.  It is a wonderful, insightful story of strangers becoming community, of people near the end of life whose history and stories seem present in fragments if at all.  Kidder borrows a line from a Frost poem as he wonders, “What to make of a diminished thing…”  After the revelation about Marie, I began to look at the people around me wondering how many of them I had diminished simply because I didn’t know more of their story. How many had I discounted without intending to, due to my tunnel vision about who they were, what they had accomplished, and what they had to contribute.  I became more aware of the risk of living out of my own perception without acknowledging the inherent limitations.

I could suggest that we focus on gathering every tidbit of information we can about those we encounter.  Although there are occasions when we should be open to a fuller life story, it isn’t practical to think we can literally know everything about someone before we assess who they will be to us or who will be to them.  What I am suggesting is that we work to be fully aware that there will always be more to the story than we will ever know. That our respective stories will be a part of our exchange even when we don’t know they’re there.  And knowing that, we will add an extra measure of grace to our giving and our taking.

I think Plato said it well…

“Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”