Today, November 23, is my father’s birthday. He would have been 89 years old today–or 90, depending on which records you read. For the past few days I’ve been exceedingly sad, for no real apparent reason, at least that’s what I told myself. Then I remember that I am still experiencing residual grief from his death in September of last year. I’m not sure why I forget to factor his death and grief into why I have been feeling sad. For many, many years after my mother died I experienced “seasonal sadness,” seemingly random, inexplicable sadness that would hit me out of the blue. When I finally figured it out, I realized that the sadness reached a crescendo around anniversaries of her diagnosis, illness and death, her birthday, and of course the holidays. I used to call these annual, cyclical bouts of sadness “my ‘Mommy’ cells waking up.” This was based on my belief that grief is encoded in my cellular structure and latent cells wake up at the approaches of significant days and anniversaries. So my daddy cells are awake and I guess I’m just going to be a little sad for a while. Tonight I am grateful for my father and who he was, and I celebrate and honor his memory.
Tomorrow I will join in with much of the rest of the country to celebrate Thanksgiving. I wonder what happens in the energy field on days like Thanksgiving. Is there a collective energy of gratitude that permeates the collective consciousness of Americans on this day? It’s nice to think so, isn’t it? I can remember when I was a kid that we would occasionally go around the table and would tell something that we were thankful for. We didn’t do it every year. Sometimes I looked forward to it and was disappointed when we didn’t do it, and other times I was anxious when we did do it because I wasn’t sure what I was going to say. I wonder how many people will take the time to answer the question, “what am I thankful for today?” I’ve spent a whole lot of time thinking and writing about gratitude lately, and I would love to say that I have been faithfully conscious of how thankful I am for so many blessings. Though I generally have considered myself a thankful person, I think I’ve become much more conscious of gratitude than I have been in times past. I’m glad for the more intentional focus I’ve given it over these months–the more I’ve expressed gratitude, the more I’ve recognize what I have to be thankful for.
I don’t know what I’ll write in tomorrow’s blog. My hunch is that it will be a simple gratitude for the many blessings I have in my life. For tonight, I’ll play my guitar and sing a few of my songs that my father really liked and wish him a happy birthday, wherever he is.
© M. T. Chamblee, 2011
