A Note About Gratitude

This past month I've been one of those folks who's done a daily gratitude post on Facebook. (Give or take – on days that I missed, I was grateful no one really noticed.)

At the start of the month, I decided to do things a little differently.

I wanted each posting to be about someone I could tag. I wanted them to be people I wasn't in close contact with – and some, such as authors or TV personalities, who don't know that I exist other than as a statistic. I wanted them to be people who, were it not for Facebook, I might have lost touch with altogether – people who, at various times in my life, played a role. Maybe it was a funny co-worker or a kind soul.

I trust my family and dear friends know how much they mean to me. And, although sometimes I punish it with too many sweets and not enough exercise, my body hopefully knows how important it is to me as well.

We often forget or fail to acknowledge the little things in life – the people who have touched us in some small way.

This is not to say these people are little. This is to say that their little gestures, actions, and traits left an impression on me. Some of them aren't on my holiday card list. Some of them might not have seen me show up in their feeds had I not tagged them. But all of them enriched my life, made it fuller, made it memorable, made it unique. If you want to get floral, which I do since this is the last day of the month, all of them wove a thread through the tapestry that is my life, making it more colorful, adding texture and helping to create a picture beyond my imaginings.

For this I am grateful: all of the people I've encountered – tagged or not this month – who have made my life richer.