Gratitude.
This word often comes up in the month of November due to the Thanksgiving holiday.
This month's ActiveRain Challenge is about Gratitude, and it really got me thinking.
Earlier this month, I thanked our Veterans. Somehow I didn't piece together it could be considered a Gratitude post. But it is. I cannot thank our Veterans enough for what they and their families sacrifice for our Country.
Now, I think and consider my family and the different types of gratitude I have.
I lost my father in 2011 a week before Christmas. He fought cancer for over 8 years, and we thought he beat it...when it came back this time, it was only a few months before we lost him. He was young. I was devastated.
I lost my mother on December 30, 2023. This leaves only my brother and me from our childhood immediate family.
My mother was a big personality and really helped to shape who I am. What can I be grateful for with her passing?
Her quick illness and death really has brought my brother and me closer together. While I have worked with other families selling their family home after their parent dies, and sometimes there is anger, argument, and frustration between siblings, this experience for my brother and me has been very different.
Though I am executor of the estate, I check with him on everything. I want him to know that he is a part of each step and decision. We discuss and come to agreements. Heck, I think we have talked more in the past 11 months than the total of the past 11 years. (While I am sort of kidding, since their family comes to my house for Thanksgiving and Christmas from out of state, we don't usually talk this much throughout the year.)
We both have seniors in high school getting ready to go to college. We are bonding over the stress of applications and waiting to hear responses.
We have had better and deeper discussions about our lives and our families, and I am grateful that the loss of our mother to have brought us closer together.
Now, I am thinking of how my mother often called me "Pollyanna" growing up since I almost always try to see the bright side of situations. I guess some things never change. Thanks, Mom. Love you.
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Footnote: If the Pollyanna reference doesn't register, here is a Wikipedia page about the book, and below, a quote from the page:
" "Pollyanna" has become a byword for someone who, like the title character, has an unfailingly optimistic outlook; a subconscious bias towards the positive is often described as the Pollyanna principle. Despite the current common use of the term to mean "excessively cheerful", Pollyanna and her father played the glad game as a method of coping with the real difficulties and sorrows that, along with luck and joy, shape every life."
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