Gratitude

During the month of November, my kids and I focused a lot on gratitude. 

Cliche, maybe, but powerful. 

November brought with it the anticipation of all sorts of significant holidays that we would be celebrating without Jason for the first time in our family history: Julia's birthday, Thanksgiving, Rudy's birthday, my wedding anniversary, and Christmas. It was scary and heartbreaking and overwhelming to consider going through the holidays as a newly divorced single mom.

Luckily, 2 years I had started a tradition of doing a Thanksgiving Tree through the whole month of December. (Thank you, Nancy, for the idea.) It's always been a fun thing to do, but this year, I think it really made a difference in helping me to stay focused on the joy and beauty of each holiday instead of the loss and grief I feel at the divorce.

We start the month off with a bare tree 'skeleton', and add leaves each day with things we are grateful for written on them. This year, we talked about how life can seem really empty and dead if we don't have gratitude, but if we start to look for things we have been blessed with and that we cherish in our lives, gradually the very same life can seem vibrant and full of color. Spending some time each day discussing what we are happy to have in our lives was such a cooling balm on my aching heart and those of my children's too. It helped us find the beauty, joy, and fullness that is still in our lives, despite the tragedy of loss we all experienced this year.