*photo by Jessica Mangano via Unsplash.

With Thanksgiving happening tomorrow, I’ve been hearing a lot of people talk about gratitude. A lot of us are actively practicing gratitude during the month of November, which I’ve been encouraged by. It is a far better way to focus on the season rather than the horrific roots of colonialism and genocide that historically encapsulate our holiday in the United States. The interesting thing about Thanksgiving in itself is both its name and the fact that our native peoples also consider it a day of mourning. In fact, there is an event you can attend virtually or in person to learn, listen, and observe the national day of mourning (find it here:https://masspeaceaction.org/event/national-day-of-mourning-2023/#:~:text=WHEN%20AND%20WHERE%20IS%20DAY,the%20Plymouth%20historic%20waterfront%20area)

This year I have been trying to find space in my own life to hold both of these things. And I think I’m figuring it out. I shared the following in a post on my social media today and I wanted to share it with you all to start off this post.

“I’m learning how to hold both gratitude and grief this holiday season… and in a way, it feels right.

It still sucks, but it feels right.

I wonder about how God held both gratitude and grief knowing all that the birth of Jesus would bring.

I wonder about how Joseph held both gratitude and grief… learning of Mary’s pregnancy, struggling with staying, then having an angel appear, grappling with knowing his first born son would not be his own and was ultimately birthed to some higher purpose…

I wonder about Elizabeth, rejoicing in the conceiving of a child only to be left mystified at the sudden muteness of her husband.

I wonder about Mary, knowing the great miracle that was growing inside of her while also losing dignity, family, and friends, to gossip and suspicion.

I’m learning that grief and gratitude are not mutually exclusive.”

Grief & Gratitude.

Who wants to hold grief? Absolutely no one. Not a single person. Something I’ve found to be true is that the culture I live in doesn’t hold grief well. We don’t process it well or hold space for it well culturally. We give people 3 days off from work when they’ve experienced a loss of life, and we expect them to be able to function at their same level of productivity when they return…as if there isn’t a gaping hole in their life. And this doesn’t account for the other types of losses one experiences throughout life.

I’ve been learning about loss in group therapy lately. There is a lot of loss of life (my dad, other family members, friends) that occurred early in my life that I never really had the opportunity to grieve well. There are also many losses that we all experience that have nothing to do with death… and those need time to be grieved and heal too. In my own life this has often looked like the continuation of grieving a death. For example, grieving my dad wouldn’t be around for my 16thbirthday or grieving that my great grandmothers wouldn’t be around to experience the kids I will have someday. This year there is some of that kind of stuff going on for me.

This year, I am loosely holding a particular grief that has been a sore spot for years now. That is the grief of experiencing infertility. You may have noticed that I’ve posted a lot more poetry lately on this subject. This is the first year I’ve felt the freedom and release to share some of my poems that encapsulate my journey with and on the topic of infertility. At the same time, this year has been hard in a new way. I don’t know why, but I was really hoping to be pregnant this year in particular around this time. I imagined what making that announcement might look like, both to my husband, our family, and to all of you reading. This is obviously not the case, and that’s been extra hard to swallow this year.  I’m also acknowledging another and very different kind of grief this year. In order to better my mental health and take the space I need to work on my own healing, I’ve had to cut off a familial relationship. This has been hard. I’ve had to grieve what was, what should have been, and what won’t be. I’m still in that process. I’m still figuring out how to operate in my new normal. It is not a choice I regret, but it is a choice that has impacted me almost as deeply as the reasons I needed to do it. In a way, this has even deepened the grief I feel around infertility. More grief for things that won’t be, can’t be, should have been. 

In the midst of all the pain, emotions, and difficulty in the healing process, I also have found myself with room for gratitude.

As some of you know, our car decided to break down on us last week. It was an adventure that we didn’t expect nor ask for. Still, something good came out of it… We got to see God move in a mighty way. I set up a crowdfunding campaign on *Spotfund ( https://www.spotfund.com/story/https://unsplash.com/photos/white-candle-on-brown-wooden-table-smNzhFQRktgc8c3cc45-91df-4420-aac8-e39abcac9552 ), and within 2 days our community helped us to get almost completely to our goal, and when we went to pick up our car we didn’t have to pay anything out of pocket and the folks fixing our car did everything they could to help us out. I don’t have the words to express how incredibly grateful and just how moved I was that provision just fell from nowhere for us in that situation. I am just so thankful for our community and that God showed up through them!

I also am incredibly grateful for the healing and health I’m experiencing in regard to the nausea I’ve been experiencing over the past 5 years. I wrote about that here: https://labellajourneys.wordpress.com/2023https://unsplash.com/photos/white-candle-on-brown-wooden-table-smNzhFQRktg/11/18/health-journey-praise-report/
This has been something that has sparked so much joy, thankfulness, and just… When my body feels good, life is so much easier. This is something I had just accepted and had not been praying about it, which makes me feel even more confident in the fact that God sees me and is at work in my life, and in my body.

The last thing I want to note as a space that has me growing in gratitude- This move we made to Columbus, OH.

I have been finding my people, people who love poetry and writing and are pursuing art with their whole heart. I am finding people who are also going through the same things with family, infertility, chronic health, and faith. I’m working in the most positive environment for me that I have worked in in a long time. I look forward to work each morning. My anxiety is coming down. My blood pressure is coming down. My joy and contentedness with life is going up. I’m growing in hope. These are all things that I am incredibly grateful for. I don’t have the words to describe how drastically my life has been changing for the better in the past 5 months. I have that feeling, like I am right where I am supposed to be… and that helps to bring peace and solace on the days that are hard. Never in a million years would I have expected this to happen in Ohio, but I’m glad that it is. I’m so glad to be at this place in life.

Grief is not easy to hold and make space for. We have to practice making that space.

Gratitude can be hard to find if you don’t actively make space to practice it.

I’m learning how… one step at a time.