Every November 1st, during my children’s years at home, we created a grateful tree. We would cut out leaves of different patterns and colors and make a pile of them on the island or table. Next to the pile was a ason jar. It was filled with stones supporting a nicely painted, white, tree branch.
It wasn’t large, but it was large enough to be noticed in the kitchen. The tree would then hold all of the leaves we would attach to it as the month progressed.
It wasn’t something that I grew up with. It was something that came to me in my struggles as a mother and wife, in my feelings of irritation and impatience, neglect and betrayal. To be happy wasn’t necessarily the goal. But to be able to sit in a space of gratitude for just a minute a day for a month felt like something I could accomplish.
I also figured that if I was struggling to feel grateful that might be rubbing off on my kids. As a homeschool mom, they were with me all of the time, pretty much. Sometimes I was a little fearful of the things they might glean from me. They might not sit and meditate with me in the mornings or do yoga with me. But they might just fill out a little leaf and put it on the tree.
As the month progressed and the tree filled up, I loved looking at what the kids would write. I even loved the snarky comments my children would write about each other. They were ornery and insincere, but very representative of the ages that they were.
The weekend of Thanksgiving, we would read the leaves out loud. There were some I might have skipped reading out loud, frankly, because of their inappropriate “gratitudes”. Kids are hilarious.
I wish I would have kept the leaves. I only remember a few things that they said that were out of the ordinary. Most of them were things like “food” written by a 13 year old boy and “sleep” written by a 14 year old girl. Not surprising at all. But I am grateful that we did it. These are sweet memories for them now.
This year, Thanksgiving week was precluded by a week from hell. But, if I wrote on a leaf today, it would say these things:
- I am grateful that my son and his future wife are celebrating this weekend together.
- I am grateful that my three girls are home with me and getting along.
- I am grateful that we are enjoying the company of a few friends.
- I am grateful my migraine is going away, little by little.
- I am grateful my sister in law loves to shop and took my girls yesterday.
- I am grateful we got our Christmas tree last night and that I could wake up to the smell of fresh-cut fir, my favorite smell in the whole world.
- I am grateful the birds are visiting the birdfeeders.
- I am grateful the cold outdoors is something I get to look at and not be in right now.
I could go on. I think it would be fun to imagine the things my girls would write, if they had leaves, today. I’m guessing they would look like this:
- I am grateful that my boyfriend wants to be friends, even though we just broke up.
- I am grateful that I have enough money in the bank for next semester.
- I am grateful for my crazy aunt who took us shopping.
- I am grateful for a break so I can sleep as long as I want to.
- I am grateful for Marvel movies.
- I am grateful for the snuggly cats, Leo and Archie.
It’s a good life and there are many tools we, as parents, can use to help our children (and ourselves) remember that. And we often need all of the help we can get. I know I do!
As my NOLS Wilderness first aid instructor always says, “Now, go out there and do good!”
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Aaron Burden on Unsplash
