My last day of the gratitude challenge from Lindsay Mead: Dan, Kalvin & Grace, Gratitude

1. Dan.  My beautiful, courageous, smart, generous, funny husband.  Wow. There is just so much here, I have to pick one aspect or readers will be yodeling groceries on their computers or phones or iPads.   Since I’m somewhat partial to hands as a favorite body part and Dan’s hands in particular, I’ll write about them.  His hands themselves are quite perfect, long fingers, strangely handsome finger nails for someone who I’m quite sure doesn’t even know what a cuticle is, let alone has ever received a manicure.  They are perfectly shaped, perfectly veined.  In all honesty, I have a thing about hands (save the jokes) and Dan’s are entirely perfect. I am grateful for the work they do and the way they hold Kalvin and rub Grace’s hair at night and turn the pages of books and create music and memories out of thin air.  I love the way his wedding ring sits on his finger and the way his fingers wrap around his coffee in the morning, cradling the cup like a small precious rare baby bird.  I love the feeling of his hand resting on my leg and the feel of his fingers intertwined with mine.  I love that his hands are always warm (Kalvin inherited that, Grace got mine).  They are capable, strong, gentle, generous and just plain beautiful. And I’m grateful they’ve been there to hold my hand through so much: tail end of one divorce, cancer, a second cancer scare, three years + five doctors, + five rounds of IVF, two moves, two kids, three grandkids, two broken legs at the hands of one evil night nurse, two construction projects, and a million tiny moments in between.  I’ve said it before, I know this isn’t the first time Dan and I have met, and so I am also grateful for every past encounter that led to this life, and hopeful for many more to come.  Dan Lemaitre, love love love you and our life and all of our kids (human, equine, canine, feline) and “us”.  Thank you for really knowing me, who I am, and for loving me.  HB baby.  HB.

2.  Kalvin and Grace.  I will forever be grateful to Leann Dempsey and her beautiful family for helping bring Kalvin and Grace to us.  Thank you and we love you, always.

Of course, Kalvin and Grace are separate little entities for which I am grateful, but I want to save the third to honor gratitude itself so I’m lumping them together in one big paragraph 🙂 Twin hazard, I guess.  So, Kalvin, I’m grateful for your earnest smile, for the way you ask questions with utter openness and so much sincerity, it makes my soul ache, literally ache, even when you’re just asking where we are going.  I’m grateful for your little lips and the way they pucker around straws.  I’m grateful for your raspy man laugh and platypus feet and how you are always up for any kind of adventure. I’m grateful for your physicality in the world, even if others aren’t.  That’s ok my little dude, I’d rather you be full of energy and gusto than a meek bump on a log.  So go get ’em my little bear cub.  I’m grateful for your delighted squeal when we throw you in the air, for the way you swim under water, for the way you put your hands in your mouth when you’re excited.  And I’m grateful for the way you challenge me and test me to be bigger and better and softer and more patient.  You make me laugh little buddha buddy, you are such a clear earnest little channel, I hope you always stay that way.  Thank you for teaching me to be the same.  Gracie girl, my feisty little chicken.  Good god, thank you for loving me.  Thank you for the way you put your hand on my face at night and sigh, Momma.  Thank you for every time I’ve walked in the door and you come running with those little sandpiper legs of yours, just skirting the surface, do you even touch the ground?  I’m grateful for the way your upper lip curls when you really smile, for the giggle that makes me cry just thinking of it, for the joy, for the way you love me.  I’m grateful for the way you say, no problem, it means no worries, hakuna matata because really, with you right there beside me, true words have never been giggled.  I’m so grateful for everything that you are, and that both you and your brother chose me to be your Momma (and Daddy too).  Thank you Kalvin and Grace, thank you for choosing me. And know it is my honor and joy to be your Mom.

3.  Gratitude.  What else would have me dripping big tears onto my computer but gratitude?  What else can change the entire course of a day in a heartbeat?  What else can color my life with such beauty and vibrance?  What else can make me see with new eyes, every day? What else can shift myperspective so simply and yet so drastically?  I truly pity those people who live in a state of entitlement and self-absorption, who can never quite shake the fundamental belief that it is all about them. My heart constricts merely in their presence, so I cannot imagine living life inside that self-created prison. No.  Gratitude is bliss.  It is celebrating the magic of being alive. It is an opening of space and eyes and awareness and presence.  It is the force encouraging me, imploring me, pushing me to jump in, get dirty, learn something new because even the hard has lessons to teach.  Lest I forget to honor the reality of my very human struggle, I get jealous, I get competitive, I get angry, I hold grudges, I shut doors on people and relationships.  I do all of those things.  And when I do, gratitude is my elixir, it is self-forgiveness and space and release all in one.  Gratitude is freedom from the mitote.  Gratitude reminds me I’m complete, more than complete.  It is an energetic shift that brings me back to the very basic fact that I am happy, in all my human gore and glory, I am happy to be here, and so very grateful to be alive, to be loved and to feel love for so much and so many.  Thank you.