gratitude

I think learning gratitude is really just the process of growing up. Of learning that everything you enjoy now is the product of sacrifice, hard work, dedication, selflessness. The investment of time, commitment, hope in a future that is better than the past.

I was thinking today about my Mom. Thinking about a book I wrote, as a kid, that described being an adult as "getting to do whatever you want," like dragging your kid around on errands when all they want is to go home. Then I thought about the times as a kid, going with Mom all over town to help her shop for things, how that was our way of spending time together. I learned to shop and be a consumer from these trips. But I imagine for my mom, it was nice to have someone to do that with, and also, to have the means to buy what you want, that was a luxury. That was the American Dream. That was something that felt very independent and luxurious, coming from a past where her family had so little, only one of the three kids got to eat meat at dinner, the rest only got soy sauce on rice until the next time they were the lucky one.

I started to think about how every generation tries to make life better for the next. How my mom grew up with so little, and her Mom with even less. My mom's life growing up was unimaginable to her Mom, my life now so pampered compared to what my Mom had. Ever generation doing what they can so the pains and hardships they endured could be a little more faded for the next. More room for joy, for carelessness, for the freedom of unburdenness.

But this realization pains me. Thinking about all my Mom, my Grandma, have done so I could know a different life. I will never know their pain. They will never know the same joys. This hurts me, feels like distance insurmountable.

To be grateful is to see that sacrifice, born of love, and hope to perpetuate that forward, in gratitude for what was given me.