Being grateful for the grieving

Sunday morning. Slave to my morning routine, I ran through the feature columns of the weekend newspaper. Ms Sumiko Tan shared her fears on middle age. Which would be terrifying for an old geezer like me. But the feature that got me pondering deeper was Ms Tee Hun Ching’s article on gratitude. The G word as she said and we can expect this year to herald in a “global gratitude renaissance”.  We need to be thankful even for the “thorns” in our lives.

Here is the soft link, in case you want to read for yourself … http://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/grateful-for-the-thorns-in-my-life

I went on to google on gratitude and was inundated with a host of sites put up for registering and journaling one’s gratitude. There is a rising swell of gratefulness sweeping the net - numerous on-line gratitude diaries, Facebook gratitude groups and so forth. Even mobile apps to allow blessings to be counted on the go. Give thanks and give them bountifully and generously.

My search brought me also to an elegantly written New York Times article by Arthur C. Brooks. He professed that choosing gratitude is the best way to build happiness. Be thankful for even seemingly useless and insignificant things, like the “spots on a trout”. And authentic happiness will follow suit. It is definitely worth your while to read…

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/22/opinion/sunday/choose-to-be-grateful-it-will-make-you-happier.html?_r=1

Be grateful for mercies big and small.  For the blessings that we so easily take for granted yet if they go missing, life would be so different. How would anyone argue with such obvious truths?
 

Looking back at my last weekend, indeed life appears the stuff of idyllic living. Friday evening was spent in the company of  close friends. We enjoyed dinner together at a cosy bar & grill restaurant and stayed till late sipping Spanish wine, while debating on religion and politics and fretting over the ill state of today’s mayhem-stricken world.
 

Saturday, I was hard-selling at our University Open House, an annual event to herald in a new cohort of students, our basic life-blood. As the event was staged at the heart of the city, I finished the day with a blissful jog around the scenic Marina Bay. Passing throngs of tourists along the 4km route that began at the Paliament House and finishing at the Merlion, this would be one of my all-time favourite exercise route.
 



Merlion with the Marine Sands Hotel as back-drop

At the Merlion, amidst crowds of photo-snapping tourists, I gamely posted my latest work-out on Facebook. Almost immediately, I got a call from a friend. He had just read the post. He invited me to join him and family for dinner, since I was already out and about in town.  The Kontiki restaurant located along the Kallang riverfront, beneath the towering Benjamin Sheares bridge offered a fantastic alfresco dining experience, as we soon discovered. Gentle evening breeze, amazing scene of the city lights and skyline across the river, great food and even better company. 


City sky-line across the Kallang river



Sunday was reserved for family time. To bond with my three kids.

 

So how could I not be more thankful? Friends and family have given me enough reasons to be grateful for what life is offering. If I count the little insignificant trifles, as Dr Brooks has suggested, the list of blessings would be overflowing.
 

Choose to be grateful and you will be happier. That was said too.
 

Happier, though not necessarily happy. Because it is hard to be happy when my life is so derailed.
 

So this last weekend, while I was reminded about Gratitude, and the need to give thanks to all things big and small, I have to face the awful fact that the G word could also be Grief. And the two make for rather uncomfortable bedfellows.
 

How could I truly and honestly feel grateful when this one central person so important to me has now gone missing? Forever the gone girl.

For Jenny, during her last days in hospital fighting a horrendous disease, gratitude must have been a struggle. If she could at all, she might appreciate that her family – her kids and I and her two wonderful sisters were always there. Tending to her by the bed-side day and night. She would feel loved. She was assiduously tended to by several caring nurses, highly professional, yet tenderly skilful in how they had treated her. I suppose, even in that difficult state, Jenny would agree that she has much to be grateful for.
 

And perhaps I should also learn to be grateful for the grief. Because, the simple reason for my grief is my love for Jenny. And it is my love for her that has made it worth all the grief that I am experiencing. And the more than 30 fabulous years that we had shared together. I like to ask for more time together but that wish is of course, moot. I should just be grateful.
 

Grateful that she had entered my life and for all the good times we had shared.
 

Grateful for her calmness, her steadfastness, her faith and faithfulness in me, her endless wisdom and constant no-nonsense nagging to weed me of my annoying and oft-times disgusting habits.
 

Grateful for her soft and cherubic smile and her frowns of disapproval to help me to quickly wise up to situations and grateful for her nonchalance to ignore me and discourage my lame sense of humour. Grateful for her to being just her, unpretentious and unassuming.
 

And most of all grateful that she chose to be my wife, taking my hand in marriage and bearing and raising three wonderful kids for me.
 

And finally when her final moment came, I was grateful that the children and I were there and grateful that I could hold her hand in mine to feel the last trace of life course through her veins.
 

The list could go on till this blog runs out of space. But I think you have gotten the message. While my heart grieves, it is filled with gratitude.
 

There is really so much to be thankful of. Including your taking time to read this post.