Attitude of Gratitude

In 12 step you hear a lot about having an attitude of gratitude. I usually took that to mean that I needed to have a sit down talk with myself about the good things in my life when things are going bad. This is a true part of it, but not all. Yesterday I realized I was experiencing gratitude, not in the forced look for it sense, but in the wonder of realization sense. To share this wonder I need to first back up a bit.

You are coming into a story already begun. I haven't blogged about it specifically before this time because the primary player had requested secrecy until she was ready for the information to be public. So if you feel a little lost or experiencing a HUH what's going on moment, that may be the reason why. The veil of secrecy has been lifted and I am free to reference this phase of my travels and life.

I am in Missouri. In late summer a friend, staying in Japan with her husband who is working on a defense contract, was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was counseled to return to the states for surgery, which she did. We all skipped into surgery expecting her to leave behind a part of her body and return to Japan to live happily ever after. It has not gone that way; the cancer was in 12 of 13 lymph nodes removed. Tests have been run to see where else it has gone with results pending.

She came to Missouri because her son is here and she had a place to go, but there is no preexisting community relationship. I felt concern and since I was headed east anyway, came to support her through the surgery thinking I'd be moving further east in December. I'm getting ready to sign on for my third month here with an option for more depending on weather and other circumstances. And I am grateful.

Here is where our current story begins. I have one absolutely unmovable date on my calendar for spring, but several I want to be there items. I consider myself to be pretty selfish particularly when it comes to arranging my lifestyle to protect the level of health with which God has blessed me in the last seven years. I have generally allowed myself to do what I can, and when I can't, bow out and not always gracefully. Yet here I am interrupting that pattern but still trying to be careful of health. I will never have the emotional and physical strength I once had; but what I have, I am learning, is much more than I knew I had gained. And I am grateful.

I am grateful for those, who through their shining examples, stood by me, held me up, and walked through with me so many fiery trials over the years. I'm grateful for the hours spent in the rooms, the hours sitting in waiting rooms, taking notes, and asking questions, the miles driven to appointments and even to rescue from halfway across the country when I couldn't get myself home. I am grateful for one who last year traveled a similar path supporting a friend through cancer, and shared about it on line. I am grateful to those who walked with me, though they barely knew me, through the dying and death of three family members in one year. I'm grateful for the selfless giving of many who have by their example given me the freedom to turn around and pass it forward. I am grateful to have a lifestyle that has now allowed me to do this for the second time in two years. I am grateful I couldn't see ahead what each of those stops would entail, because I'm not sure I would have gone. However, once in the midst, I wouldn't want to be some other place. I am doing something I would not, could not, do before. And, I am grateful.

One way or another I will get to my one unmovable calendar date, even if it means leaving behind the motor-home and taking the car for a road trip. The other stuff... how important is it in the big picture? It might just have to be postponed or passed over. Living one day at a time is taking on a new meaning. Life is leading into a different adventure. Even though not the one I envisioned, I am grateful.