Inspired by a blog post I read recently, I want to take a moment to be grateful. I’m as guilty as anyone of getting caught up in running always for the next accomplishment, the next purchase, the next thing I don’t have. When I do this, I forget to be grateful for what I already have and how blessed I feel.
I’m grateful for my wife, Claudia. Soon we will have twenty years of marriage. (How we met.) I still can’t believe it sometimes. I grew up surrounded by divorce. I sort of figured it would happen to me. Yet here we are, not just together, but closer than ever. When I think there are no new depths in our relationship, new depths come along.
I’m grateful for my sons, Dylan, 16, and Daniel, 14. They’re teenagers who for some reason still enjoy spending time with me. I’m not sure why. At their age I didn’t want to spend time with my parents. We barely spoke. Each of them is known to give me hugs now and then…sometimes for no reason at all. I took them to a concert last weekend and at one point I was standing there with them flanking me, one already taller than me, one soon to be taller, and all I could think was that surely nothing could be finer than to stand there with them, so proud of the men they are growing up to be.
I’ve got lots more to be grateful for too, like work that fulfills me, a great home, my health, and so on, but I’m going to leave it at this for now. I have so much. And I am grateful.
(Thanks to Theodora Goss and her wonderful post on gratitude.)
