Assignment: Gratitude poem- What are you thankful for? Fill your poem with imagery: visual, olfactory, tactile, gustatory, and auditory! Minimum of 20 lines. Be sure to give your poem a title.
The journey through life is inevitable; filled with glorious fun, difficult decisions, easy friendships, tough choices, pain, love and hope. One thing we do have control over is how we choose to greet each day.
I choose gratitude.
I choose to appreciate the people that surround me.
Our year of learning to deal with Parkinson’s Disease has been rough around the edges, but the people in our lives have given us love and care, hope and encouragement and strengthened our faith on the journey. We all move from birth to death and as they say… “It’s not the destination that matters, but how you take the journey”.
“Eyes Wide Open”
With eyes, heart, and mind, I delight in the people who surround us.
My soul wakens through their love and care.
A smile of encouragement can make all the difference in my day.
The simple words ‘call if you need anything’, spoken with conviction, can make a rough day turn into a day that feels safe, a day holding the comfort of a friend.
Life can feel dimmed when one has a degenerative disease. Life feels dimmed as I watch Russ slowly loose mobility. Then alongside walks a friend, holding us up in both practical and loving ways. What a gift!
We could choose anger, pulling a curtain of fear over life and missing all the opportunities to rejoice and instead wallow in a blurred view of each day.
We could choose defeat, relaxing into unproductive days believing we have nothing to offer.
We could choose isolation, falsely thinking it is easier not to burden others.
But instead we choose family and friends! We choose the richness of their love and care.
With eyes wide open we learn to appreciate that life is not all about us. We learn that by allowing others to support us on this journey, we waken in them compassion. And what is life without compassion?
Through collaboration, our friends and family change our hearts. They don’t see the dark, they see the light and honor us with the vision.
A call from family offers a new side affect; love and kindness. The emotional uplift from a loved one's voice is immeasurable. Oh the joy of family!
From the inside, from the human heart, acts of love and kindness touch our souls. The people who surround us are ‘life giving’.
As family and friends meander through our days, the legacy of love is nothing short of a miracle. At each day’s end, our grateful prayer is of thanks.
Each person who touches our lives, give us life, lived better through their generosity. There is peace because of the people who surround us!
In a word, we are grateful for people. From those known to those passing in the moment. The smile of a stranger who willingly waits minutes upon minutes for a man ‘stuck in festination’ to be able to move through the door they are holding for him. The young man who steps back and says ‘you first sir’. The friend who says sincerely ‘call anytime, day or night’. The acquaintance who wants to know ’how are you holding up?’
Each seems a small step to measure, but taken collectively it equals the extraordinary. What is life without people who care? I am the living example of hope because of the generosity of others.
A grateful heart sometimes requires courage. I alone get to choose who or what holds first place in my heart, my emotional center? I choose friends and family.
…and I thank them all for their part in our journey.
Happy Thanksgiving