It’s Thanksgiving Day in America, so you know the drill.
This is the Super Bowl of gratitude, the occasion on which we’re meant to take
a little time—a single day out of 365—to pause and reflect on the things in our
lives that essentially bring us joy.
That’s what gratitude is, right? The realization that
something or someone brings us joy. It might be a momentary flicker or an all-encompassing
wave of delight, but saying, “I give thanks for this” is really the conscious
acknowledgement of that happiness. One day out of the year for this is just the
teensiest bit paltry, in my opinion, but still—let’s make the most of it.
For the past few years I’ve made a concerted effort to
practice gratitude daily. This isn’t always easy; there have been days when I
only grudgingly and after much flailing about come up with three things to name
out loud as being worthy of thanks. This very month, following the attacks in
Paris and for the first time in years, there were two days I couldn’t find the
heart to do even that.
I’ve been thinking a lot about all those lives in shards
after that Friday night. No warning and no reason. Lives ended, bodies maimed,
families and friends bereft and bewildered. One minute a play on the football
pitch, a rock song or a bite of dinner; the next explosions, automatic fire,
screams, blood, death. No one knew when they headed out that night that this
was in store. They weren’t prepared to die, and they didn’t know to prepare
their loved ones for their deaths.
I, on the other hand, count myself as fortunate. I had
the grace, the blessing of knowing that my days with my BFF were numbered. She
died last month, five years after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer, a
bastard of a death sentence. Pretty much from the beginning, Leilah did a
magnificent job of facing the future, and she prepared us for that every step
of the way.
And this was a tremendous gift to me. After initially
totally screwing the pooch for a couple of months, I did my best to be brave,
supportive, encouraging, silly, honest and loving, whatever state of mind I
found her in. Knowing her time was precious, we made super use of it by
communicating openly and, in the end, fearlessly.
Example: last summer I asked her, “Listen—all those years
when I made fruitcakes and gave them to you at Christmas: did you really like
them, or were there a lot of very tipsy birds around your house? It’s okay, you
can tell me the truth; I’m never going to go to the trouble of making them
again.”
No, she really liked them. A slice of fruitcake and a cup
of tea were just what she needed on some days.
This year, when she finally stopped the chemotherapy, we
doubled down. She’d planned to hook a small rug for me in a Celtic knot
pattern, but she realized she wouldn’t get to do it. So she sent me one in an
Amish pattern that she’d made a couple of years ago. I told her I’d put it next
to my bed so it would be the last thing my feet touch at night and the first
thing they touch in the morning. And so
it is.
On my recommendation, she watched Fantastic Mr. Fox—Bill Murray as Mr. Badger was what did it. She
loved it, high praise as a career children’s librarian who wasn’t all that wild
about animated films.
I started jotting down memories—pie (she basically
introduced me to real pie), getting so involved in our conversation while out
on a hike that we ended up halfway to Baja before we realized we were lost, smuggling
her cat Angela across the Oregon-California border, our respective weird
cousins (mine are contenders, but hers sweep all categories), flying to Borrego
Springs in their Cessna…for brunch—and scribbled them across several cards.
Just reminders of shared experiences, conversations, laughs, close calls. I
came nowhere near covering the depths, but I gave what we researchers might
call a representative sample, and she was tickled to have card after card
arrive, all those cues to fire up her own memories.
She did her own version—for my birthday last summer she
sent me a carton with many small gifts, which included a pair of earrings I’d
given her about 40 years ago, her mother’s pilot’s log book and two sterling
serving pieces that simply beg to be used at a dinner party. It was Christmas
in August.
My last conversation with Leilah was right after my job
interview in DC in October; I called her the instant I walked into my hotel
room and got those interview shoes off. She was so pleased to hear the enthusiasm
and confidence in my voice; that came through the slight driftiness of the
morphine. It was a good conversation, and it ended (as our calls have done for
more than five years) with us saying, “I love you.”
A week and a half later she was dead. No more phone
calls, movie recommendations, surprise packages at the door. But the legacy of
a deep friendship that enriched my life and made me a better friend to others.
And we were able to say how much we mattered to each other because we knew we
didn’t have much time. Nothing went unsaid, nothing got put off “until next
time.”
And because of that, I know that Leilah knew how much she meant to me, and I
sure as hell know that she loved me. We expressed that in every conversation,
every debate, every cup of tea or glass of wine. There was no room for doubt,
and that is a huge comfort to me as I face my first holidays without her to
share them with.
Here’s the thing, people: we’re all under a death sentence. We just don’t know when it’s going to
be executed. The world we live in is not as stable or safe as we would wish—and
we need to work on that. Part of that work, in my opinion, is never passing up
an opportunity to express our affection in words and actions—to those close to
us and those we meet on the way.
Treat everyone as though this might be the last time you
see or talk with them. Be honest—be kindly
honest, especially about how much you appreciate them. When you act like a jerk
(come on—we all do), apologize as soon as you can bring yourself to do so. When
they do something to piss you off, consider cutting them some slack; or, if you
must call them on it, frame it in terms of the anomaly you know it to be. Leave
a note, make a call, send an email, give a hug, pat a back, listen to a tale, share
a cookie, say a prayer—whatever it is that strengthens the connections that
bring joy to your life, do it.
Do not wait until you see a Paris-class catastrophe or
get a phone call saying so-and-so was in a car crash to think, “But I didn’t
get to say…” You still may not get to the Celtic knot hooked rug or the grand
photo album with annotations and pithy remarks. But, in the end—soon or late—that
won’t matter if you’ve created that tapestry of friendship one stitch at a
time, making every moment count.
Trust me on this: you’ll be grateful you did.
