The Gratitude List for 2020

“If, then, I were asked for the most important advice I could give, that which I considered to be the most useful to the men of our century, I should simply say: in the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.” ― Leo Tolstoy, Essays, Letters and Miscellanies

Everyone I know will tell you that they are so sick of 2020. So ready to turn it off, mash that button that turned it on and make it all disappear. But was this year really that different than all the others before it?! In some ways, sure, but in more fundamental ways, wasn’t life this way always?!

This year, like any other year, the world went through much of the same turmoil it has gone through since it’s inception: people got sick with and suffered with at least one new or unknown disease. Just like any other year, some homes have an empty seat at the table because someone died sick, shot, strangled, in war, or in an accident. This year, just like any other year, women were raped and children were abused. Someone of color, someone who was gay or of a different religion than the mainstream one was hurt, abused, marginalized, or even killed. Just like any other year, the voice of injustice spoke once again against the weak and the helpless.

Just like any other year, leaders of the world rose, and leaders of the world collapsed. Supporters cried, and others cheered.

Just like any other year, the world has known happiness and joys, too, in the birth of children, puppies, kittens, and cubs. Kids started schools and the older ones finished them and plunged into life. People married and got divorced. They retired and bought homes. Older people downsized and younger people bought or built their first homes, full of dreams. Someone somewhere was starving, just like any other year, and someone, too, managed to survive hunger, cold, injustice, and more … Wars started and they also ended, leaving people and landscapes scarred, never the same, but perhaps freer.

Through overheating, more hurricanes than every before, war, ignorance and heartbreak, the planet is still here. Our blue bead is still floating into the big abyss. Every sunrise and sunset are just as awesome as always …

But just because something gets more press it doesn’t make it more important. Or worse. Or better.

What was different this year, however, was that, as rarely happens in the life of even many generations, we were given enough time to think about these things. For the first time in a really long time, we know we cannot continue to move along as if nothing happened here. I hope we do something about this new realization.

We have been given this precious gift this year, to internalize every single thing that happens to each of us, ourselves, our families, our neighbors, or even strangers, and to distinguish these things from one another (good from bad, just from unjust, fair from unfair), to think before we speak and move on with what we believe to be our truth. We were given the time to understand, perhaps, better than any time before, that what has happened for many years, hundreds of years at time, can no longer continue to happen. We were given the strength to know that it starts with every one of us to change the world and make more of those happy times happen rather than the evil ones happen … I hope. We were, for the first time in many generations, perhaps, given a clear-as-crystal vision to understand that it starts and ends with us. We alone are the ones to carry the blame as well as the victory flag. Every. One. Of. Us.

In this eye-opening year, when I mourned deaths, and cried alongside with people who still suffer every day, I found myself feeling an enormous amount of gratitude for what I have been so undeservedly blessed to have in my life. I wanted to stop for a minute and acknowledge all that I do have and thank all of the people who made my life possible and so rich. This year, more than any other before, I am humbled by the amount of bounty that I have been given.

This is my gratitude list for 2020.

• My husband. His mere presence.
• Our jobs
• Our house
• Our health
• Every moment together with the ones I love on the right side of the dirt is a gift
• Health insurance
• Our physical independence that allows us to stay mobile. 
• My mom’s relative stabilization of her lung cancer. Her strength and resilience.
• My dad’s ability to walk and drive
• My aunt’s strength, physical and mental, and her ability and willingness to help my parents
• My mother in law’s amazing strength and fierce independence to take care of herself every day as a double amputee approaching 80. She is unstoppable! 
• Our extended family’s health
• Our family’s physical safety
• My sister and everything she stands for that I am not: kind, patient, giving to a fault, loyal, the best mother, and so much more ...
• Our freedom
• Our memories
• The peace that we have been blessed with right before we fall asleep in our woodsy neighborhood
• Our ability to read and get virtually any book we want so we can stay aware
• Our food, every day. Every meal.
• Soap
• Toilet paper
• Masks to protect us from others’ germs and the ability to wear them without much effort
• Our car
• Road trips
• The beautiful state we live in that gets us out of house and fills our eyes and hearts with the beauty of its land
• Vegan ice cream
• Eastern European food stores that bring home to me when travelling there is not possible
• Science advancements
• Medicine
• Vaccines 
• Good doctors from my past that were one step ahead of diseases completely destroying me
• My cardiac surgeon, Dr. Mitchell.
• Another year surgery-free
• Nurses, orderlies, medical facility cleaning staff
• Skype, Zoom, Facetime
• My favorite yoga teacher who can now teach me remotely from Greensboro, NC
• Friends who still email out of the blue to check in. You know who you are. 
• Foot rubs at the end of the day
• Electricity
• The internet
• Safe water and air
• Fiery sunsets
• Long and flat forest hikes
• Orchids
• The smell of fresh dough
• Making a brand new recipe successfully
• Parchment paper
• Rainbows. They give you such hope!
• Getting 100% reimbursed for a trip we were not allowed to take anymore with no consequences or penalties
• Air-dropping on i-devices
• The order of the universe. We had several retrograde planets, a huge planet conjunction, asteroids coming at us, but we’re still here, floating around our star. 
• Streaming 
• 72F in November
• That we’re not fearing bombs being dropped over our heads every minute
• That we can hold a decent job and have most of what we need: clothes, food, entertainment, extra cash.
• Tireless lab techs that return lab results before the end of the day
• My Romanian teacher who still believes in my writing and publishes it in our local literary magazine
• All the lessons all my elders have taught me
• The memories my kitties left me with. They carried me through this year of being pet-less.
• The sassy, smart, cheeky jokes of my nephews. They remind me that there is beauty and hope under the ugly rugs of the day, as long as there is laughter. 
• Home-use machines for testing blood pressure, oxygen levels, or levels of INR (blood coagulation metrics)
• Touchless credit card technology
• Hand sanitizer
• Front-line workers in any crisis
• My prayer list got longer this year - I am grateful to have so many people to care about and wish well.
• The FH Foundation and its relentless leaders and contribution to making our lives better
• Outdoor cats that heal my longing for one, even for a brief minute - their beauty and grace.
• All the funny people in my life - my dad, husband, my nephews, especially. 
• I learned that I CAN actually function without plans or when the whole world blows up my plans  and the sun still rises in the East the next day. 
• My husband’s vegan shortbread cookies
• Woodpeckers
• Unpleasant business had a way of turning itself off this year, with little to no effort on my part. Being true to myself and having some patience paid off. 
• Those who speak for justice and equality. Their courage makes life better for all of us. 
• Those who share their stories so we can learn from real life.
• Right turns. Life is complicated enough without having to turn left and risk getting hit.
• Those people who wear a mask with a smile. You can see that in their eyes. They show kindness to others rather than discontent for their inconvenience. 

I hope and wish for all of these blessings and for many, many more for all of you into the new year, and always …