What I Know: I have Won a Few Lotteries

“Find the farmers market and the library” was not the only bit of wisdom my mom shared with me that sad summer when I lost my job as a newlywed in the country.

No, my poor mom fielded what was likely many downer phone calls from me Summer 2011. On one I shared how not just one, not just two, but THREE rejection letters from potential employers arrived in my inbox in one afternoon. It was a Friday and I was waiting for Adam to get home from work. We had a wedding that weekend for college friends— something we did often that year. It was very fun and busy; but also, expensive and, more important to me at the time, a scenario primed for surface level conversation. A lot of: What do you do for work? Or, what have you been up to? Or, how is life in the country?

At the time my answers would have been: Nothing, nothing, and not great.

I sighed as I went to sign off with my mom. We chatted about what to do about the rejections and what opportunities and responses were still out there and I tried to interject some humor (a bad coping skill of mine that still persists). I said, “I don’t know. The Powerball is sixty eight million. Maybe I can just win the lottery and not worry about this any more.”

And then, there was my mom, so calm, wise, and quick with a, “I don’t know, Claire. I think you have already won a few lotteries in your life.”

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Gratitude is kind of “hot” these days.

And, while I don’t love the commercialization of it with all the journals and the adoption of it by powerhouse self-help gurus, I get it’s popularity. 

The science is there that it helps with depression, satisfaction, and self esteem. I also love the studies that proves that its great to receive gratitude— reminding me to show appreciation for friends, coworkers, my kids, and Adam often. Kelly Corrigan, a writer and podcast host I love, often has her guest share their “Plus 1’s,” the people that they are thankful for and that have helped them along the way.

As a kid in Sunday School, I remember hearing “What if God took away all the things you didn’t thank him for today?” This lead to frantic prayers from me to the big guy late at night rattling off: Mom, Dad, Kerry, Danny, my house, my friends, etc., etc., etc.

As an adult, thinking of gratitude more like “little lotteries,” and less like a threat as I once did, makes me more optimistic and also content.

On that sad summer day, I didn’t have a job and I didn’t have sixty eight million, sure. (I likely didn’t even have sixty eight hundred.) But, I still had a lot.

First, I saw the big stuff: My family. Adam, a new husband who loved me. A house. Adam having a job that covered our finances while I was unemployed.

But, the more you use the gratitude muscle, you start to see the little things— things you have for no good reason. Like, my health. My parents heath. A brain that made learning the normal kind of challenge it is and permitted me to be social, able to work, and even live on my own. The privilege to be born in this time as a white, female to parents like mine. In a body that is capable of so much.

Some philosophers feel that you cannot be grateful and unhappy at the same time.

I am sure they have their reasons, but I am not sure that is totally true. This interview with Anderson Cooper and Stephen Colbert is my evidence. Both men lost fathers and brothers when they were young. Stephen lost his father and two brothers in a plane crash when he was ten years old. Anderson lost his father also at ten and then a brother to suicide ten years later.

In a conversation about gratitude and grief, Stephen shares “the importance of learning to love the thing that you wish had never happened.”

He went one to say, “To exist is a gift and with existence comes suffering.”

So to love your life and be grateful for your life, you have to love and be grateful for all of it. Not just the “good” lottery wins.

When Dan died, my dad shared that “to love is to suffer.” He was the quickest of us all to be so grateful for the time we had with Danny. He even eulogized him by way of a “thank you” note. (Dad’s Eulogy starts at the 38 minute mark.)

In it he shared his gratitude for the lessons Danny taught us all, but especially for the influence he made on my parents as their child—something that is often over looked as we focus so much on how parents impact children. It is just as significant the other way, too.

I know this to be true from another moment of suffering. I didn’t know I wanted or would be changed for the better in parenting; but, through the hard stuff in Theo’s birth and my postpartum challenges, I was. For that, I am so grateful.

And, even from from that hard time in the Summer of 2011. I wish I had not lost my job, but I love what that time taught me. There was new knowledge about myself— my interests, passions, and skills as I explored my mind, heart and in my community (ahem.. at the Farmers Market and the Library). Through conversations and good work on perspective and grace I learned how there really was always something to be grateful for.

But, all of it has given me the awareness of other peoples loss– big and small. I now can make connection quicker and deeper because we all suffer. Knowing this allows us to love people in a deeper way.

My dad and I are reading “Life Worth Living” that is based on the Yale Happiness course and written by its instructors. One of the big themes is that most lives are not at risk of being to weighty or “too much,” but actually too light. When it comes down to it, I don’t want a light life. I am thankful for this weight.

Growing up, at our dinner table we used to sing the Johnny Appleseed prayer before every meal as “grace.” Because, being Episocpalian, we didn’t say grace… we SANG grace.

Sometimes we would sing grace nicely. But, sometimes it just the siblings at the table and we created a bit of a remix. 

We would rush through the lyrics. Singing as fast as we could go, giggling hard at the end. Sometimes we would think it was silly to sing as slow and low as we could. We would shake and wiggle our arms like we were playing a weird game of Red Rover as we sang, trying to break the other person’s grasp. Or, squeezing their hand as hard as we could watching them take the pain, be strong and sing the whole way though. Sometimes we would sway and tug to the rhythm of the song. We would hold random words a note- or seven- longer or much higher. 

And, even when it was just two of us at the table, we would sit across from each other, hold both hands and sing the words: 

The Lord is good to me

And so I thank the Lord 

for giving me
the things I need
the sun
and the rain
and the appleseed
the Lord is good to me 

When I planted my first garden that sad, jobless summer, I felt something in the dirt. Though years away from actual “church” there was something spiritual in the act of growing plants. Planting a seed deep in the darkness of the dirt and with a little water and some sunshine, it would thrive and become something totally new. This reminded me of this song we would sing around the table and of me.

I would find myself thinking about the Lord or the universe or whatever and how good it was to me and this little garden of mine. Giving this garden exactly what it needed: sun and rain. 

That garden, that summer, and all the other great and hard things have given me more than I could ever want- let alone need. Even sometimes giving me things I didn’t think I needed. 

So many times it has been pure sunshine. 

But, there also has been lots of rain. 

I am so thankful for both.

Little Lotteries all around.