Gratitude

About two years ago my great friend, Stephanie, asked for my help.

Eagerly, I asked what was up.

Her request was one I had never received from a friend- or anyone for that matter… she asked me to help design a tattoo for her wrist.

The task was easy enough. She was looking to have one word done in script handwriting.

I asked for the word.

“Gratitude,” she texted.

I practice gratitude almost daily.  It’s a habit for me and I love it.  Knowing about Steph’s life, I had a hunch on why gratitude was so important to her too.

But, without question or thinking too much, I quickly drafted up a handful of options using various styles and pens. We toyed with capital or lower case “G’s.” With loopy letters versus tight script. Within just thirty minutes we had a winner.

Less than two weeks later she was inked.

She excitedly texted me a photo. It looked really great and she loved it.  I was so honored that she had trusted me with something so permanent and personal.

On the phone that night, I told her that I had an idea why she wanted the tattoo; but, asked her to tell me more behind her desire to have the word gratitude tattooed to her.

She shared that the driving force behind the tattoo came a couple Thanksgivings earlier.  Her parents had recently divorced.  It was hard to see their vibrant, Italian family change so dramatically.  In the same season of the divorce, her college roommate and great friend, Katie, had passed away in a tragic boating accident.

Combine those major hardships with every change, challenge and emotion that comes with being in your early twenties, she had every right to be sad. And, she was.

But, on that Thanksgiving morning, as she felt like her home was broken and the day would be shrouded by darkness.  She read a quote that caused her to fight back tears:

“The things you take for granted, someone else is praying for.”

She recognized that yes, somethings were hard.  Really hard.  But, at the same time, so many things were so good.  And, she was going to be okay.

And, she was.  

Steph carries scars from that season, sure.  But, she is happy.  So happy for many things, even that incredible hard time she walked through.

Still, on the phone, I remembered this time in her life that she was referencing.  She was different then.  Normally loud and sarcastic, she was deflated and shut in.  She had every reason to be.

As we spoke more, I recalled a moment with her from that time period so many years ago.  

I had just married and moved in with Adam.  The adjustment to life in the country was… an adjustment.  And, making it that much more hard, the programming for my job had been cut a few months earlier so I spent the summer unemployed.  Many days, I was bored, bitter and frustrated.  

But, it was my twenty fourth birthday and we all gathered at a friends lake house for our annual girls weekend.  

After a boozy day in the sun, many of the girls disappeared to bedrooms to sleep, but four of us stayed up talking.  So not to wake anyone, we poured a bottle of red wine into our solo cups and walked out to the dock in the moonlight. 

It was a beautiful night.  Clear and warm.  The moon danced in the ripples of the water.  Boats quietly creaked as they slowly swayed at their docks.

Three of us sat down on the wooden dock. But Steph, who had been a little nervous about the idea of a boating weekend- just weeks before the one year anniversary of her friends death, looked out at the lake.

“I wonder if it was like this like that night,” she said, still looking out.  “I wonder if it looked like this when she got on that boat.”

We all shifted a bit and looked out to see what Steph saw.  

“I wonder if it felt like this.  If it was nice out.  A beautiful night.  She was with friends and happy.”

I stared at the moon’s white reflection on the black water.

Katie’s death was so shocking to us all.  Though she wasn’t in our sorority, Steph had remained super close to her after living together in the dorms freshman year and we saw her out from time to time.  

I didn’t know her well, but I knew she was a great friend to my friend.   I knew she loved fashion and had the most beautiful red hair.  I knew she had a boyfriend and would find out in the weeks after her death that he had a diamond and had been trying to figure out the best time to ask her to marry him.   I knew she had just started her career as a nurse, which was fitting for her because she loved babies and wanted her own someday.

My eyes wondered from the moon’s reflection on the water to Stephanie’s foot, where Katie’s signature had recently been tattooed.  Always poetic, Steph chose her foot in order to take Katie with her everywhere she went. Everywhere Katie didn’t get to go.

I thought about how I had been living that summer.  Feeling so sorry for myself- jobless in the middle of nowhere.

And, in that moment, it finally clicked…  I was so crazy, lucky.  

I thought about how I get to be married to the love of my life.  Start a home with him.  Maybe even have babies with him.   I get to travel to the lake to visit with my friends.  I get to drink wine with them on a beautiful summer night.  Laugh with them.  Dream with them.   

I get another birthday.

Yes, in that moment, I didn’t have a job and that came with many worries and frustrations.  But, still, I had so much good.  

I had drive.  I had love.  I had support.  I had possibility. I had life.

For that, I was so thankful.

It changed my outlook.  It changed my summer.  And, the two more months that I reminded jobless weren’t as bad.

When things have seemed bad since then, I have always been quick to make a mental list of all that I am thankful for.  

All that I do have.

All that I have for absolutely no good reason.  I didn’t work for them.  I didn’t manifest them.  They are just gifts that I have been given for no reason and they can so easily be taken for granted.

Those gifts- and so much more- are what Katie had ripped away from her at twenty two.

On the phone, I told Steph that because gratitude is now such a part of my normal routine, I had not remembered this night when she first asked me to draft up her new tattoo.  But, that night on the lake, is when my gratitude journey started.  

Thanks to her and a lesson from her great friend, Katie, I am so thankful.