Even in the dark days of 2020, there is still so much for which to be grateful

The View

Recently, I was straightening a framed photograph of my mother which sits on my cluttered office desk at home. I noticed that the photo had slipped down in the frame and that something was visible behind it.

Intrigued, I removed the backing and found an undated letter from my mother. I had absolutely no recollection of placing it there. I must have thought at the time that I would never forget but I did. Coming across it was like a bittersweet blessing.

It is more like a note than a letter and is obviously written in haste, although my mother’s handwriting was always better than mine.

I hope and believe that my mother forgives me for my self-centredness but I still wish that she had slightly less to forgive”

It reads: “Breda, I am writing this in Waterford. Just thought a postal order would be better than a cheque. I was very upset last night to think that you had no money. I know the feeling. When we got married first, it was awful. We hadn’t a penny but still survived. Mum.”

I can see her writing the note in the car, probably the same car that she died in three years later on the feast of the Holy Rosary, as she and my father were saying the Angelus while crossing the bridge across the Suir from Ferrybank.

As far as I can make out, I received the letter in 1996, 24 years ago, along with the postal order, which probably paid a bill that I had no idea how we were going to pay. I had one child and was pregnant with another and like many young couples, we were struggling financially.

My mother died in October 1999. It may well have been the last letter which I received from her. It certainly is the last letter I still possess. The swift, empathetic generosity was typical of my mother. Her favourite saying was that you never miss what you give. She had a hard life in many ways and sometimes I bitterly regret that I did not appreciate her more when she was alive. I presumed that I would have years more with her.

Even in the dark days of 2020, there is still so much for which to be grateful”

In these dark December days, in an Advent like no other that I can remember, my mother’s letter is a reminder to be grateful and to let people know that we are grateful while we still have the chance to do so in the flesh. I hope and believe that my mother forgives me for my self-centredness but I still wish that she had slightly less to forgive.

Even in the dark days of 2020, there is still so much for which to be grateful. As we light the Advent candles one by one, we are not pretending that the dark does not exist. We are just saying that it does not have the last word.

Unbearable

This year has brought unbearable suffering to some, financial ruin to others, and some degree of loneliness and inconvenience to everyone.

It has swiftly dispatched the notion that we human beings are ever in control. And while the darkness and suffering are real, so too, are the blessings.

In one way, I think of the first lockdown as bonus time. My children, all now adults, were scattering in the normal fashion when the lockdown gave us extra months together in the same house. Precious time to be savoured, made all the more precious by knowing that it would end.

I understand why I love him but it is a daily miracle to me that he loves me”

My own health took a battering as stress and working in far from ideal conditions re-activated a chronic pain illness that I have had for years. A pain-free day became something to savour. A night’s sleep became an event worthy of celebrating by a diary entry. Why does it take something like pain to make us appreciate being pain-free? Should we not be dancing every day that is a normal, ordinary, blessed day?

Friends

Close friends have lost spouses in recent years. I still have my best friend, the one who knows me inside out and somehow, unlikely as it seems, manages to love me to pieces. I understand why I love him but it is a daily miracle to me that he loves me. And not just my husband but other friends who mock me, mind me and make me laugh. Such riches, such immense riches, so much for which to be grateful.

The expression to ‘count your blessings’ reminds us of the ultimate source of all that we so often take for granted. Some Jews believe that one should try to find 100 blessings in the day, while gratitude researchers give us the more modest goal of recording three things a day. Either way, this Advent, may we grow ever more grateful to God for his many gifts.  As Christmas draws near, in the words of the psalm: May God continue to bless us; let all the ends of the earth revere him.