Random note on gratitude

[legna]

The other day in a meeting on gratitude, I found myself quoting from the latter part of an essay had written some year back while my wife was still in prison. I looked for it when I got home and decided to share it here. There's always something to be grateful for:

Other men wake up in the morning, open their eyes and find them resting upon their wives. The might make coffee for her as she cooks breakfast or give her a kiss on their way out the door to work. Other men might give her a call in the middle of the day just to tell her they love her or hear the sound of her voice. They might send her flowers for no particular reason or surprise her by swinging by for lunch. When other men return home from work at the end of their day, their wives might be there to greet them with a smile and a hug. They might cook, sit and eat together; they might cuddle up on the couch together watching a movie or talking about their days and finally, they might head to bed where he can fall asleep knowing she is safe with his arms wrapped lovingly around her.

Other men can see their wives every day; they dont need another mans permission to do so. Other men dont need stand by impotently while personifications of insecurity and fear masquerading as men find new ways to belittle, disrespect and dehumanize her. Other men dont drive twelve hundred miles every week for the privilege of seeing the woman they love. Their kisses, embraces, letters and phone calls arent restricted or monitored. Other men can put their arm around their wife when they sense she needs his touch; they can make her laugh when lifes getting too stressful. Other men can hold their wife when she cries; they can tend to her when shes sick.

Other men, but not me.

My wife is in prison. The simplest acts of a husband are, on those rare occasions when they are even possible, monumental challenges. While the love is easy, every other aspect of our lives seems incredible hard. And yet, if I take a moment and examine my situation honestly, I would not trade my life for anyones on the planet. No other man can call my baby his wife. No other man can lay claim to her love or have her be the willing recipient of his love. I am somehow, miraculously, living the one life I would choose if I could choose amongst all the over six billion lives being lived on earth the life of the man who is loved by this woman.

How in the life of a man so blessed, the life of a man living the one life he would choose if he was free to choose from all that exist, how is it that he can ever forget to be grateful? How can joy, even for a moment, slip away? How can the pressures of the day, the difficulties at work, or an unkind word from some inconsequential soul how can that measure next to the greatest gift imaginable? What is it in a man that makes him so quick to forgo his gratitude and joy over even the pettiest of lifes transgressions? I truly regret that I may never know but I know this: By a gift of human nature, I have the power of choice; and in this moment I resolve, that no matter what challenges life continues to bring, to always remember to experience the joy and gratitude that I am not other men.