Counting Blessings--and Remembering

It was the day before Thanksgiving nineteen years ago when my second daughter, Natalie, woke up very ill. She was just six weeks away from the open heart surgery that corrected a congenital heart defect (vsd), and she had a fever and was vomiting.  She was 5 1/2 months old, and she was still very small for her age because of failing to thrive for the first four months of life due to the defect.  We called the pediatrician who said to come right in.  Since we had been so consumed with her heart health since her birth, we assumed there must be a problem.  They took blood, and it showed an unbelievably high white count (sign of infection).  It was such an unexpected result that they repeated the test.  The pediatrician contacted the cardiologist who said to come right in.  

It was an unusually warm, sunny 60' day in November in Minnesota.  I had already done the Thanksgiving shopping, decorated the table with fresh flower arrangements.  We were expecting my sister to arrive from New York.  Yet, we found ourselves at Children's Hospital once again.  The cardiologist quickly determined there was nothing wrong with her heart and contacted the oncology service for further testing.  We were immediately admitted to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, which we were familiar with having spent time there after her heart surgery.  It was surreal.  

More blood was drawn.  I tried to comfort Natalie.  We were waiting.  Then our cardiologist, Dr. Singh, walked in to tell us that Natalie had leukemia.  I didn't hear it, because when the oncologist came in to tell us that they are pretty certain which kind of leukemia we were dealing with (Acute Myelogenous Leukemia) the more aggressive type of leukemia, I didn't comprehend what she was saying either.  I couldn't believe there was anything so wrong with my precious baby girl.  

And just like that, our lives changed forever.  

I got to spend the night with Natalie in the PICU even though that wasn't usually allowed.  I held her in the bed and tried to comfort her, as life as I ever knew it came tumbling down around me.  It was not just Thanksgiving that was spent in Children's Hospital.  It was Christmas, New Years, Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, and then finally, on a snowy Easter morning we got to bring our Natalie home for good with a feeding tube, a methadone drip, a catheter inside her chest.  Life was truly upside down.

I cannot help remembering that year, every single year.  I wish I could forget, but the PTSD that I got from the hospital experience won't let me.  So, it is nineteen years later, and despite the pandemic and all the ups and downs the world has seen, I remain blessed beyond belief for my daughter, for her survival after three resuscitations, for her life, for her health and for the health of my family.  

Gratitude Is a Goal

With Thanksgiving coming up while the virus is surging, we are all facing a very different kind of holiday this year.  Hopes of being together--just physically being together--are now flattened because of covid.  

Plan B--what will you do now?  How will you make this time feel worthwhile and important, positive and full of thanks?  Maybe it will be the traditional foods that make the holiday feel, smell and taste like you want it to?  Maybe it will be a new tradition to explore?  Maybe it will be a zoom connection with people you might not normally gather with?  However you plan to do it, it has to be meaningful to you. 

This does not have to be the best Thanksgiving of your life.  It doesn't have to be the worst either.  It is the Thanksgiving that just is.  It will be memorable in its own way, I am pretty sure.  

So this brings me to my focus on gratitude as an attitude to cultivate in daily life no matter what is going on around you.  First, make it a goal of yours to focus on what you are grateful for so that you always have more.  Second, set aside time in the day to note what you are grateful for so that you can appreciate and re-appreciate what those things are.  Third, consider writing those things down in a notebook and keeping track of all that you are taking the time to notice.  Fourth, let it be enough.  REPEAT.  

I have been giving this a lot of thought.  I usually have quieter Thanksgivings.  I usually teach yoga at the YMCA in a gym full of happy people.  I usually workout at Orangetheory Fitness afterwards.  I have attended interfaith Thanksgiving services.  This year, it will be quieter than before.  This year, the yoga will be online.  This year, I am not going to any gym or service.  This year, I will be counting my blessings.  

I will tell you about my worst Thanksgiving next week...

Plan to Be OK Now

It's no joke.  Covid fatigue and frustration are here.  So is the surge.  Don't even ask yourself if it could get worse, because we don't want to know the answer to that one.  As I write this, I am thinking of my former home (Chicago) going into lockdown for a month.  So what does that leave us with?  How are we supposed to practice health and wellness lifestyle tips and stay positive with a growth mindset vs. a fixed mindset and keep going with so much chaos?

The answer came to me at my workout yesterday. The coach started the workout by quoting Winston Churchill.  "Success is not final.  Failure is not fatal.  It is the courage to continue that counts."  That courage to continue and be ok with what comes--is where we are right now.  

With Thanksgiving only two weeks away, it is becoming painfully clear how different this will be from other years for most of us.  Yet, that is precisely the problem.  This is Thanksgiving 2020.  Comparing this holiday to years gone by robs us of the joy we might find in the present moment.  

I say yes to planning for things to go well.  I say yes to keeping the traditions that will serve you and keep the holiday meaningful to you.  I say yes to starting a new tradition or planning a new activity.  I say no to overeating and excess.  It just won't help.  

It is always a practice to stay in the present moment.  It is always a challenge to not focus on the past or the future.  They have no power, yet they preoccupy us and trouble us and make us depressed and anxious.  Free yourself to be ok--or even better than ok--but OK about what happens this year with holidays so that you can actually enjoy whatever surprises might come your way.  

Kindness is a Virtue

When times are as tough as they have been lately, I recommend coming back to the very simple lessons we probably learned in kindergarten.  BE KIND.  A variation of this message might include TREAT OTHERS the way YOU'D LIKE TO BE TREATED. 

Being kind to yourself, first and foremost is enormously important.  You live in your own head all of the time.  This is especially problematic nowadays.  When you are stressed--or in the waiting stages of something to happen (When will Covid be over?  When will the election be decided?) you are less likely to practice the virtues of kindness and patience that you need the most.  It's ironic and unhelpful. 

All is not lost.  By being aware of the fact that you are NOT being kind to yourself through negative self talk, criticism, etc., you have the power to shift.  You have the control to move away from those thoughts by dismissing them.  You have the awareness that negativity will not help you, and so you turn that negativity inside out and talk to yourself the way a favorite person from your life would talk to you.

My French teacher, Madame Jeannine Holman, from Paris, was this person for me.  She always managed to make the world ok when  I was being too hard on myself.  She died ten years ago, but I have saved years of her letters.  In her French handwriting, even at the end of her life--in her shaky handwriting, she managed to make the world a better place for me.  So, it is she I often think of when I need that boost.  When I want to be reminded that I am ok--and I will be ok.  Her decency and kindness are an example to me.  Somehow, the world seems more manageable just thinking of her.

It is the simplest of things that cannot be bought that we hang onto right now.  We need the virtue of kindness, turned inward first, and then displayed outward to the world to make it through decently.