Wake County's Yates Mill Pond park in Raleigh, North Carolina, Wikipedia
I'm thankful for non-genetic things, too. For instance, I am grateful for the change that my retirement has brought to my morning routine. No longer do I have to wake in the dark, shower quickly, grab a cup of coffee, and dash out the door to scrape ice off my windshield so that I can be well-put-together, smiling, and ready in my classroom by 7:45 a.m. five days a week.
I'm thankful for the hundreds of students I taught, who in turn taught me, and for the warm memories of their presence in my life.
I'm also often thankful for sheer happenstance. How many of my friends and loved ones have been acquired by a chance meeting or event!
I'm even a believer in conditional thankfulness, as in: "I will be so grateful if we don't have an ice storm this winter like the one that took out our power for five freezing days last year!"
But I am most of all thankful for the great gift of my children. Sometimes, of course, that gift has brought pain. Sleepless nights were the least of it. At least then I had the illusion of being in control. These days, when active motherhood has essentially self-destructed, there are occasional moments that bring on a flood of sadness-tinged nostalgia.
This morning was a bright, brisk, autumn day in North Carolina, which is in itself enough to make anyone thankful. As I took my morning walk, I was enjoying scuffling through the leaves when I heard it: the sound of a basketball being dribbled. There was a small ping! in my heart, which is what sometimes happens when I hear or see something that reminds me of my sons, long grown and gone from home. The sight and sound of a couple of kids bouncing and shooting a basketball on a Saturday morning has the power to trigger all sorts of memories, even though my eldest son is well over 40, the youngest is about to be 35, and I myself am a long way from the empty nest mopes. In retrospect, those hours seem golden, back 30 years ago when I could look out the window and watch the continuing game of pickup that took place every afternoon and weekend around the basketball hoop in our driveway.
I had to laugh at my sentimentality, but around the very next corner there was yet another ping! to the heart. A couple of kids who looked to be about eight or nine were scuffling over a soccer ball, heading toward a makeshift goal in the back yard. Their mother stood nearby with her back to them, talking on her cell phone. "I wonder if you know how lucky you are," I found myself thinking as I looked at her. It was all I could do not to catch her eye and shout: "Hang up, for God’s sake, and enjoy your children while you can!" not unlike Henny Penny who shouted "Alarm! Alarm! The sky is falling! The sky is falling!"
Well, at my age, I've developed some self-control, for which I am once again thankful. It keeps me from making a complete fool of myself.
In the long run, I really do know that it is better to suffer the pings! to the heart than never to have had the extraordinary experience of motherhood. Anyway, these days I have grandchildren who are perfectly dandy little dribblers of soccer balls and basketballs. And no one needs to remind me to be thankful for them!
©Julia Sneden for SeniorWomen.com
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