We must learn to let things flow just like breath, and life will do the rest. – Iyanla Vanzant

By Anne Lamott

I admit, sometimes this position of gratitude can be a bit of a stretch. So many bad things happen in each of our lives.

Who knew? When my son, Sam, was seven and discovered that he and I would probably not die at exactly the same moment, he began to weep and said, “If I had known that, I wouldn’t have agreed to be born.”

This one truth, that the few people you adore will die, is plenty difficult to absorb. But on top of it, someone’s brakes fail, or someone pulls the trigger or snatches the kid, or someone deeply trusted succumbs to temptation, and everything falls apart.

We are hurt beyond any reasonable chance of healing. We are haunted by our failures and mortality. And yet the world keeps on spinning, and in our grief, rage, and fear a few people keep on loving us and showing up.

It’s all motion and stasis, change and stagnation. Awful stuff happens and beautiful stuff happens, and it’s all part of the big picture.

In the face of everything, we slowly come through. We manage to make new constructs and baskets to hold what remains, and what has newly appeared. We come to know—or reconnect with—something rich and okay about ourselves.

And at some point, we cast our eyes to the beautiful skies, above all the crap we’re wallowing in, and we whisper, “Thank you.”