ON GRATITUDE & BEING YOURSELF
In this time of the year close to Halloween and Day of the Dead, it is said that the veil is thin. The boundary between the living and the dead is blurred. Our own family takes this time each year to honor my son’s father and our ancestors, telling stories and bringing our own remembering rituals into this sacred time. Since he has been on my mind and since we are also approaching this season of gratitude, I would love to share this story I wrote about Felipe last year. I hope you enjoy!
A story of gratitude and being yourself
This year on Thanksgiving, I was remembering my late husband, Felipe, and how as a family, we got really into the art of blessing our food. Taking a moment to be present and reflect on our gratitudes before our meals. It felt really spacious and lovely. We’d take our time, sometimes sitting with a group of friends, everyone slowly soaking up the silence and depth of the moment in communion, thinking of all the people who brought the food to our table and how grateful we felt for such richness in our lives.
So Felipe was known for often being the weirdest guy in the room, delightfully so. He truly didn’t care what anyone else thought about him, in all the best ways. He’d take this depth of our blessings everywhere he went, taking long silent pauses in restaurants or anywhere he ate, just eyes closed, going deep into his still moment of gratitude. It was always a beat too long for me–slightly uncomfortable–but where I might feel self-conscious, I could take his lead and just try to go inside for that pause.
Many years ago at my cousin’s wedding, I remember a huge group of my mostly Catholic extended family all sat down with full plates, in all of our fancy clothes and excitement ready to dig in. Felipe offered that we do a small prayer and everyone seemed delighted for the reminder of that ritual. I’m sure everyone was expecting a short and formal, tidy Catholic prayer and then to move along with the meal.
But Felipe had everyone hold hands, close their eyes and he guided us into a meandering blessing touching on the blessings of our family and the gathering, the wedding, the food, and then all of the things that helped to bring the food to our table, nature, the weather, farmworkers, life. I looked up to see my family starting to squirm after the first twenty seconds and continued to delight in how uncomfortable things got deep into minutes one and two. I met my brothers snickering eyes and saw people looking at each other, shifting in their chairs like schoolchildren. They couldn’t escape this blessing, it was surrender to it or wait it out. This was a glorious Felipe moment, totally unphasable as he did his Felipe thing right there.
He finished the blessing, opened his eyes just totally zen and full of gratitude as my family gathered their wits about them and everyone dug in. I’m SURE totally tuned in to this moment in a different way.
So just be weird and be so you, right?! Say the blessing or don’t but I love that we have these moments to connect with ourselves and what’s important to us. These are the things we remember about life, the deep stuff, the touching stuff, the funny times we tried and flopped or triumphed but were just totally ourselves. We have to try, we have to step up and dig in. And these are the moments that people remember about us after we’re gone.
