Attitude of Gratitude

Can I let you know a secret? In my life, my favorite mantra is having an attitude of gratitude. I know we all have ups and downs. No one has a perfect life. You may have more problems than others on a particular day, but never forget to count your blessings. 

Life throws curve balls, and sometimes we just don’t know what to do. We all have had tragedies in our life, but as we look back and reflect, we see how we survived. It may be a family member, a friend, a colleague or may be a stranger who helped us through our journey of grief and loss. 

I lost my dad when I was 13. I am the middle of 3 sisters, and both my parents were teachers. My mom continued her teaching job and made sure our needs were met. My older sister started her college 1800 miles away from home the same year this tragedy stuck. I started college 3 years later 800 miles away pursuing veterinary science. As a single mom, which was not common in my culture back in 80’s and 90’s, she did everything she could do to give us the home environment and childhood we deserved. I respect and admire my mom for her perseverance, focus, hard work and dedication to work towards making our lives better. All 3 of us have professional degrees- an electronics engineer, a veterinarian and a business administration degree. When I started working after graduation and visited my mom and younger sister, I wanted to take gifts and make them feel special, but thankfully nothing was lacking and whatever I added was never a need but always an add-on to their collection. My mom was ready to fulfill her last biggest obligation- to marry off her youngest daughter, my sister, but life took a cruel turn. We lost her to heart attack just 12 days before the wedding. It was devastating; I was visiting India from US and had just come to the home that evening. My younger one was barely 9 months old. Would the sisters even remember their grandmother? We were all broken; having lost our dad early in life we always looked up to our mom for everything and suddenly she was gone! No notice, no warning, just within few hours she left us. Even in her last moments, she made sure she was not a burden to anyone. She went away quietly, unconscious in the last couple hours after having a small conversation about what to cook for dinner. Always thinking about her kids, loving them unconditionally, giving her best to her family, and never asking for anything in return. I think that’s why God makes mom- a version of Himself to always care, give and make sure kids feel safe, loved and wanted! I hope my legacy would be my kids feeling the same about me. I hope…My sister was married at the scheduled date with the same preparations that my mom had planned. My older sister and her husband did the ceremonial rituals on behalf of my mom. 12 years has passed since; and it still feels like it just happened. Loss of a family member is irreplaceable, and especially mom’s void can never be filled. Never. 

Then I reflect on what all I have in my life. A loving and caring husband, 2 wonderful kids, house, friends, job and realize that I have more things to be thankful for than complain about. I see how far along I have come as a person, how I have grown, matured and gained wisdom through the years. I am indeed blessed. Life is not perfect, but we can make perfect moments in life: moments that stay in our memories for lifetime; the best part is we can decide which moments to make and cherish. 

Having experienced loss of my parents at a young age, could have made me bitter, pessimistic, sad, or negative. But with the support of family members and having my own kids to take care of; I slowly dragged on. As they say, time is the best healer. Although I miss my mom every day and agree that life is unfair; I live my life to the fullest possible (on any given day) and try to make small differences daily. Lucky enough, I am a teacher and do get this opportunity every single day! 💗💗💗 

What I am trying to say here is that you can decide how you want your life to be like. You can either always be hopeful and look forward to what good things God has in store for you, or you can just give up and just try to survive every single day. I have come to realize that your outlook to life makes a huge difference about how you live your life. So, let’s all try to be positive, thankful and always have an attitude of gratitude!