“One regret dear world, that I am determined not to have when I am lying on my deathbed is that I did not kiss you enough.” ~ Hafiz of Persia

This is the week we seem to remember the notion of gratitude.  Thanksgiving rolls around and we count our blessings.  We pile food on the table: steaming platters of turkey and ham, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberries, macaroni and cheese, dinner rolls, gravy and all the fixins’…and we top off this largess with ample helpings of pie, usually pumpkin or pecan, but any pie will do.  Then after we’ve stuffed our gobs, we sit comatose in front of the television or we run to the mall and attempt to trample one another to get a new gadget or a free door prize.   Sound typical?

I am thinking this morning about how important it is to stop measuring our worth and our success by what we have accumulated thus far.  I am thinking about all the folks in New York and New Jersey who are in the midst of sifting through the wreckage and detritus of their homes.  What are they looking for?

Snapshots.  Baby pictures.  Beloved pets.

“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.” ~ Thornton Wilder

They are posting photos of their dogs and cats and birds and bunnies on Facebook.  They are calling animal control and animal rescues and animal foster care looking for that one particular beagle or blue parrot or Manx cat.  “Her name is Brownie,” they write.  “We miss her terribly.”  I feel heartbroken thinking of the thousands of animals that are wandering hungry, lost.  I think about the packet of love letters that washed ashore in New Jersey. 50 of them, tied with a pink ribbon. These are the things that matter.  Small things.  Our companion animals.  The plaque we won in first grade.  Our last pair of baby shoes.

The final birthday card our father gave us.

The birthday card my father wrote me a couple of days before he died, still sits on my Buddhist altar ten years later.  My brother found it next to the bed where Daddy died. When we went to collect his things from the house where he’d been living, we discovered a card for me and one for my younger brother. Daddy had very little at the end of his life.  A robe.  A rice cooker.  A few hats and jackets and sports shirts.  His car.

What mattered to me?  

The smell of him that lingered on a hat he wore.

The card he wrote for my 43rd birthday that he never lived to give me.

I realize that much of what I own no longer owns me. It may be time to do a purge, giving away whatever I don’t use.  If it is not beautiful or useful or meaningful, why keep it?

“At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.” ~ Albert Schweitzer

So this week, I am thankful for the reminder about what is actually important in this life.

Friendship.  Love.  Conversation.

I am thankful for a warm house, for my health, for my animals and my job.  I am thankful that I have enough to eat.  I am thankful for the lullaby of  birdsong filling my yard.  I am thankful that I have made good choices in life, choices that have not cost me my self esteem or my soul.  I am thankful for solitude and joy and my writing, which offers me a place to put things so my heart doesn’t spill over or burst.

I am thankful for the love that is coming; for the person who already knows my name, even though we haven’t met. Yet.

“Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so, let us all be thankful.” ~ Buddha

Thankful. Thankful. Thankful.

Today that’s enough.

© 2012  Shavawn M. Berry All rights reserved

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