WAVING FROM THE PORCH

If you’ve been reading my posts for the past few weeks, you know that am focusing on new joy-filled memories and gratefulness. The two certainly go together.

As I was reminiscing on the impact of memories, I remembered a lesson from my Mom. When I got my drivers’ license, if my Mom was home when I left the house, she would stand on the porch and wave at me until I was out of sight. Being a busy teenager, I found this a little irritating, because I would look in the rearview mirror, and feeling obligated, I would wave back.

One day, I finally asked her why she had started her front porch waving. She said, “Cheryl, if something unexpected should happen to either one of us, I would like one of our last memories to be of each us laughing and waving until we were out of sight.”

I was never again irritated to keep waving from the car!

I have been reminded, over and over, since John’s passing, to be grateful for loved ones and friends, particularly the special people that have shown up during my season of grief. This week, on our widows’ zoom call, after the formal meeting was over, we caught up a little and started laughing together. One of these precious women reminded us that we were all unable to laugh last year during this same time leading up to Thanksgiving.

To family, friends, my widows’ group, I am so grateful to you all. For those of you who have been keeping up with these posts, your comments have been inspiring and often made me laugh. For those of you joining our groups to help others move forward or get healing in grief, I am grateful to see we are making a difference.

It is vital to keep working on thankfulness for each of those special people in our lives. If something “unexpected” happens, those memories will help during grief.

Thank you for taking this journey with me.

So from my porch to yours, Happy Thanksgiving!