The Best Thing to Gorge On This Thanksgiving? Gratitude.

It’s the weirdest Thanksgiving ever.

In this topsy-turvy pandemic world, finding gratitude this Thanksgiving might feel more challenging than usual. Here’s the paradox: the capacity for gratitude is one of the most empowering gifts we humans possess.

Trust me, I get it. There’s no shortage of misery to go around–especially in a year when so many have lost loved ones. It’s absolutely true that nothing about your life will be the same again. Holding someone dear to you in your heart can’t compare with the joy of holding them in your arms, and the forced merriment of the holiday season can exacerbate the sense of loss. Rituals and memories that once brought comfort can now be a source of exquisite pain. We feel what’s missing everywhere we turn. And still the messaging comes at us from all angles: Be grateful for what you have.

Gratitude is a ladder

I’m certainly not the first person to suggest gratitude as an antidote to wallowing, but I’m here to tell you it’s available to you right now, no matter how awful the moment. Gratitude is a ladder bolted to the inner wall of the deepest, darkest well, and no matter where you are stuck, that ladder extends to your reach. You might be standing in sewage up to your neck, but the way out is right there within your grasp if you can but reach for the first rung. And now, the second…

I’m not suggesting the answer is ignoring your pain or pretending everything is fine or masking your true emotions with a Pollyanna smokescreen. Nope, what I’m offering is a magical reframe of attitude I’ve come to label “Aggressive Gratitude.”

Aggressive Gratitude.

If that sounds a little violent, you’re hearing it right. You may need to apply blunt force at times, but the shock of the redirect is nothing compared to the misery of stuckedness. And why is it magical? Because it’s yours for the taking at any moment with a simple flick of a switch. Turn that “What I lost” narrative 180 degrees into “Oh, but what I had.”

After losing my son three years + two months + two days ago, I received the gift of this insight from someone whose friend had been trained to reframe “My baby died at three weeks” to “My baby lived for three weeks.” Statement B is the gratitude piece. The aggressive aspect comes into play when Statement A intrudes, like, every two seconds. When it’s real bad, I have to give the unhelpful expression the bum’s rush by repeating “nope” out loud, over and over, until it goes away. I said it was simple; I never said it was easy.

To those who have lost family members and friends since last Thanksgiving, my heart breaks for you. I can’t feel your exact pain, but I feel for your experience. And I truly hope this message can find a place in your heart. It saves me still, multiple times a day.

Junk gets in the way.

Expectations are your enemy. “Supposed to” and “deserve” and “should have” and “fairness”… man, those constructs will get you into a heap of hurt. Who says 40 is middle-aged? Someone who expects to live to 80, that’s who. (Sorry for mathing on a holiday.) Apply the same logic to infertility, disease, sudden death, and so on. This way of thinking is normal, but it’s not even a little bit helpful.

You probably know the old Yiddish folk tale about the “poor, unfortunate man” whose little one-room hut feels crowded with his mother, wife, and six children. So vexed is the man that he goes to his rabbi for advice. The rabbi instructs the man to bring his chickens inside. “Bring my chickens inside the house? Vaddaya, clazy? ” the man’s thinking, but you don’t say that stuff out loud to a rabbi, so home he goes to bring his chickens inside the already crowded house. Welp, things get worse. Man returns to rabbi, is advised to bring his goat inside, etc. until pure chaos has been achieved. The man returns for his final consultation with the rabbi. “Put all the livestock outside,” says the wise rabbi. Our hero returns home and follows the rabbi’s instructions, restoring his home to its original occupants, and is – yup, you guessed it – happy.

Here’s the link to the independent bookstore nearest you if you’d like to pick up a copy of this gem for someone you love.

Feel free to reject unhelpful platitudes

Please, I’m not suggesting “It could always be worse,” as a gratitude mantra. And while we’re at it, I flat-out reject the ever-popular “Everything happens for a reason.” If that helps you, by all means, have at it. Personally, I find those phrases extremely painful. For me, what works best sounds more like this: “Yeah, but we might never have had him in the first place.” [Gratitude exercise: substitute “him” for a specific quality or moment.]

Time is not the healer of wounds. And there’s no such thing as closure. Would we even want that? Here’s what I’ve observed about how grief moves through time. In general, the sense of loss increases as time drives an ever-larger wedge between our last encounter and the present, but one gets used to living with the pain. And of course, there are moments – usually unexpected – that strike the raw nerve lying just beneath the surface and send a shockwave of pain as fresh as the first. But one gets used to those too.

Gratitude, 2020 Edition

When I conceived of this post, it was a lighter take on gratitude – no less heartfelt, but not centered on grief. Sorry about that. Sometimes stuff just comes out. (That’s what the turkey said. 🙂 ) But let me not cheat you of this listing of people, experiences, and things I’m profoundly grateful for, this year especially. And please comment below with your own.

• Front-line workers – nurses, doctors, grocery store (shout-out to Ben S!) and restaurant workers, food banks and emergency workers who feed, shelter, and treat those who are most vulnerable.
• Those outstanding humans whose “day job” is lifting up those ^^ folks and their work.
• The many people working toward meaningful, systemic change to combat racial inequity, housing and food insecurity, and education injustice.
• Everyone wearing a mask out of basic human decency and compassion for other people’s health over their own temporary comfort.
• ZOOM! (Thank you, thank you, thank you.)
• Toilet paper
• Our amazing current rabbis (in the strictest and broadest sense of the term) who innovate and pivot to provide spiritual sustenance for our physically distanced sacred community.
• My quarantine pod, especially when Lindsay comes home and shares her sparkles
• The understanding of family members too far away to visit (shout-out to Moms!)
• Grubhub and Uber Eats and DoorDash and Instacart drivers
• The miracle of friendship – a phone call or text, a walk around the same three blocks, sharing a cyber-classroom, bookgroup, a Facebook chat, a watch party Shabbat service “together”
• Nieces and nephews from ten months to thirty-plus
• Freezers (It turns out that food can actually come out of the freezer without going straight to the garbage. Who knew?)
• Netflix
• Chocolate (extra love if paired with sea salt)
• Van Gogh Double Espresso Vodka and the liquor store that delivers it straight to my door!
• Sweatpants and slippers
• Puzzles, paint by diamonds, and other assorted projects
• Those generous souls who spend their valuable time and energy producing detailed how-to videos on every topic imaginable, purely out of the goodness of their hearts. My authenticated domain thanks you.
• Slim Shady‘s granddoggy hugs and infectious zest for life
• Everyone who read this far in my post! Listening is more important than ever. I appreciate you!

Enough about me. What are YOU grateful for?

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