The List We All Need To Make

Dearest Rachel –

I don’t really need to tell you about all this, since I already did at the time (and basically in the moment – which means that the story I related over the course of several letters may have been clouded by my emotions at the time, for obvious reasons), but during that first, dark year after your passing – in particular, our first anniversary apart, although the scheduling was coincidental rather than deliberate – one of the men who attended the Saturday morning Bible study (and who later briefly pastored at our fourth campus location when it first opened) invited me on a men’s retreat to Colorado that he was hosting in his capacity as a Christian motivational speaker. Luke was a personable, cheerful guy, almost impossibly so from my perspective (although given where my perspective was at that time, that was understandable), and since I had nothing to prevent me from going, I did so. It exposed me to some very different people, and some very different approaches to life.

I’ll admit, there were some activities he recommended we take back with us that I’ve never really implemented. For all that he’s a wonderful guy, and I’m sure that if you peel back that cheerful, hail-fellow-well-met persona, you’ll just find more of the same, much of what I can remember felt very “fake it ’til you make it” in terms of our attitude toward life and our Christian walk. Maybe that was just the motivational speaker in him; I’m pretty sure he was genuinely talking from the heart, but I’m not sure I could adopt his approach without it feeling like a façade I was putting on.

But be that as it may, the one I remember the most was his instruction to each of us one evening to assemble a list of at least ten things we were thankful for before getting out of bed the next morning; we wouldn’t be allowed to come downstairs for breakfast until we had that list in hand. According to him, he creates a list like that every day; even at the time, I wondered how long it would take before he repeated certain items, but eventually decided that was his affair, not mine.

But since I don’t do that nearly often enough – and certainly hadn’t been considering anything like that in the days and months since your passing – it was a novelty for me to put together such a list. However, unlike Luke, I don’t think I’ve done anything of the sort since.

But with the season being upon us to be counting our blessings, I wonder if this isn’t a list I need to make again. Indeed, it’s one we all need to make now and then, if only to remind ourselves that we don’t have things anywhere near as bad as we oftentimes think we do. We are in a day and age when even the poorest among us live better than many of the kings of old could have ever dreamed of, but without that historical comparison in front of us, we do tend to forget how good we have things. To be sure, some times we remember things (and people) we used to have with us that we don’t anymore – that’s kind of where this whole series of letters emanates from, after all – but what we have left still puts us in the top one percent of all history.

All of which is a pretty good place to start, as far as things to be grateful for. The word “means” is going to pop up in a lot of these first few paragraphs, and for a very good reason. I’ll try to go light on it, or offer up synonyms, as I go along (that’s how I was taught to write in school and all), but the fact remains that we in general, and I in particular, have been given a lot to use for our own purposes (as well as for God’s, ideally). It’s not the Garden of Eden, by any means, but we have so much, and are allowed to do so much with it, that our general ingratitude when things aren’t perfectly to our liking seems more than a little churlish. And those means result in physical blessings that are material, experiential and temporal.

The material blessings, of course, are beyond manifest, and it seems hardly worth my time to elaborate on. But the fact is, when we don’t talk about them – gratefully – we forget that they aren’t some birthright that we’re entitled to, and which we can take for granted (more on that later, should I get into the littler things of life). I’m in a position where, if I want something that can be purchased, I can generally do so. There’s no great need to constrain myself, financially – although I still do out of old habit (and professional practice), which may explain why I can continue to do so, as I’m not acting the proverbial fool with his money (which is be another thing to be thankful for).

Finances don’t just buy material goods, either; they can be applied toward experiences as well. You’ve read stories from me about travels far and wide – both in the planning stages and as they happen – and while I would wish to be able to have you with me while on them, the fact that I can go at all is more than enough to be grateful for the legacy you (and your parents, and their parents) left me.

But experiences can’t be undertaken without a certain amount of free time, and that’s one other thing provided by the financial blessings I have. You said it best yourself, when you realized just how much you had been left, and what it could mean for us: “You’ve supported me [as a stay-at-home mom] for all this time; now it’s my turn to support you,” thereby offering me the opportunity to retire from my soul-crushing job and spend more time at home – and, it was hoped, elsewhere – with you. The travels I take, while unfortunately excluding you (apart from a small container of ash), are a continuation of those plans we made back then at your urging.

A quick aside to those reading over your shoulder, who note that my situation, while bereft of the one individual who serves as the raison d’etre of these letters in the first place, is likely better than your own, and I’ll acknowledge that. Let me also point out that it is one that requires me to be that much more grateful for, as it isn’t something that I can take any credit for. Yes, I saved up a nest egg over the thirty years at my job, but it wasn’t the sort of thing that allowed me to do what I do now, and that’s something I know I have to remind myself to be more thankful for all of the time. Like power, this benefit comes with that responsibility – although it’s easier to maintain that attitude of gratitude when you accept that it didn’t come for your own efforts in the first place. More on that later, too.

Of course, setting aside my own personal means for a while, there’s the fact that we as a society – both on a national and global level – have access to so much more than we ever have, which is something to be grateful for. Technology has connected us in a way that we take for granted now, but that wasn’t a thing even a couple of decades ago. I still remember the two of us buying books from Amazon as a novelty, honey – particularly in finding some old books from your childhood via that online marketplace, so that our own child could enjoy them as you had – assuming that this would be an esoteric means of acquiring the odd thing we couldn’t find at a local, secondhand bookstore. It’s wild that the business has become one of the largest companies in the world – and people rail at its creator for his massive wealth, as if he’d always had it – when at the time, there didn’t seem like it, or the internet it existed on, was ever going to be more than a niche activity for technophiles like ourselves (and indeed, so many of its contemporaries vanished with the wind shortly thereafter). It seems a strange thing to be grateful for, perhaps, but when we remember when it wasn’t a thing, it can be something to consider.

Likewise, there’s the means to access such a place, and every such place, from virtually (pardon the pun) anywhere in the world. It’s weird to realize that we have in our pockets the kind of processing power (and then some!) that used to be used to fly the space shuttle and put a man on the moon, and yet we see it as an everyday object that everyone has – although we do tend to withhold alms when we see a beggar on the street with a cell phone. Still, the fact that even our indigent poor have this access just goes to show what a rich place we live it. Is that not something to be thankful for?

When it comes to using such technology (and returning to the more personal, I suppose), I’m also thankful to have “a headful of ideas” that, while not necessarily “driving me insane,” as Bob Dylan put it, constantly give me things to tell you about. They aren’t always even topics of discussion, and there are plenty that I haven’t told you about, because I have yet to implement them, but once I do, then I’ll tell you about them.

And while these terrestrial blessings are all tinged with a touch of regret that you can no longer enjoy them (and while I still have Daniel to share most of them with, it’s not quite the same as with you… or the hypothetical ‘Megumi’), there’s also the fact that Father God, Who has given all these temporary gifts to us to enjoy for now, has also provided for us for all eternity, should we be willing to take it from Him (which adds another touch of sadness, as there are those I know who seem to refuse them, but we’re given that choice). For all that earthly existence has its pains, both physical and psychological, that often tend to drown out the ridiculously long list of good things that we have to enjoy (because we eventually see them as just a natural part of life, only to be commented upon in their absence, when we consider ourselves robbed if they’re taken away from us, as if we had some perpetual right to them in the first place), every last one of them are temporary, and not worth clinging onto with the death grip we do. At some point, we have to let go of them all, and when we do, we know we will find ourselves in a place that is so much better than here, better than we can even visualize or describe (and as a voracious reader, you know we are capable of visualizing so much, and putting it into words). The fact that we have blessings beyond anything that we have now waiting for us in the hereafter is absolutely mind-blowing, and that’s something to be grateful for, as well.

I could go on and on, honey… and it seems that I have, in fact. So much so, that I need to get on with the preparations for the day. But at least I’ve earned the right (or have I? It’s one of those things we take for granted, isn’t it?) to get up and start the day, since I’ve built this tally of things to be grateful for, along with an explanation for each one (as well as acknowledging that each one is a rabbit hole in and of themselves, and exploring a few of them in the process by way of demonstration). Every breath could be counted as a reason to praise the One Who allowed me to take it – and when I run out, there is something even better to come to be that much more thankful for – so the list could be absolutely endless. But it’s a list we all need to make, and if a day comes around each year that forces us to do so, well, that’s how it ought to be.

Anyway, I’d like to ask that you keep an eye on us today, as we prepare for and enjoy the day. And wish us luck – we may have more than our share of good things, but until they are perfect, we could still use it.