On being grateful

Tomorrow I will hit 150 days of posting what I’m grateful for on Facebook. 150 days.

Fifteen days into my grateful postings, which I started in honor of November (Thanksgiving), my dad was killed in a fire in Wichita. I won’t ever forget my brother’s words: “There was a fire at mom’s house and dad’s gone.” Dad’s gone. What? Miss you dad….so much…

I rushed down to Wichita to be at my family’s side and somehow in the middle of all of it, I decided to keep the thankful posts going. Because, even through the tragedy, there was so much to be thankful for. The kind words. The kind gestures. Disaster assistance for my mom. Donations. It was a surreal week — most of that week I wondered how the hell anyone even breathes during this kind of tragedy — but then I realize I was indeed breathing. And so were the people around me.

November came to a close and I just kept going with my thankful posts. Even when some days I wanted to resist the entire concept — there are some days I don’t WANT to be thankful for anything. Because we all have those days — where you feel like hell, you just want to cry or scream — and those days it became really hard to post. But most days I did. And if I didn’t I caught up on what I didn’t post.

Then, after a particularly hard weekend, I stopped posting altogether for a week. I just simply wanted to sit in what I call the “rabbit hole” for a week. I didn’t post thankfuls. Or photos. Nothing. And something I didn’t expect happened — I got messages from people missing the posts. I was like “what, people actually read that?” Yes, people do actually indeed read what we post on social media.

So, really, in a long-drawn out post, this post is for all of YOU who have read my posts. Who have hit the “like” button and have left comments. Because as I’ve walked through grief since my dad died, those small gestures mean so much more than most of you probably realize.

So today, on day 149 actually, I dedicate this post to YOU, my family and friends.

I’m grateful for you.