50 Days of Gratitude: Days 8 & 9

Somehow, I’ve gotten behind/lost/twisted in my daily offerings of gratitude. This annual Eastertide practice has been complicated by driving across the country at the same time. So, today’s gratitude post will hold enough for two days. I write it as the sun rises in the PNW. It’s barely a glow in the east, but it’s there.

Some days and some things are like that in the world…barely glowing, but still there. Resolve to do the right thing can be like that. Resilience can be like that. Faith, if I am honest, can be like that.

Today I am grateful that even when unexpected terrible things happen in life, and they just do, there is almost always the glow of goodness somehow surrounding us, holding us, filling us. It doesn’t make the terrible things better. Not at all. But it’s there.

Six years ago today we learned this truth again.

And here we are six years later, still loving one another and about to finally land at our destination today.

So beloveds, here’s what I’m thankful for as I reflect on this day and date:

I’m thankful for our amazing daughter, whose resolve and resilience inspire me.

I’m thankful for beat cops and young women willing to step in and bad ass detectives and equally bad ass judges.

I’m thankful for advocates in the justice system, especially those who work with survivors of assault.

I’m thankful for mental health professionals who walk alongside us and point toward that glow in the east, or inside us.

I’m thankful for the beloveds who reached out to us right away six years ago and said “we are here for you” and then were. And still are.

I’m thankful that the arc of the moral universe really does bend toward justice.