A Meditation on Gratitude

It was a tough weekend.  I left work early on Friday with a very queasy stomach.  Had to miss a meeting with my supervisor to get trained on some new software that I need to know within the next two weeks.  But it just wasn't worth staying there to learn it.  After spending the rest of Friday enjoying saltines and ginger ale, I was starting to feel like myself a bit on Saturday.

There was some laundry waiting to be done, so on Saturday afternoon I put the first load in.  Midway through the second load I heard a strange noise, and looked over to see water gushing out from under the washing machine onto the carpet in the next room.  Stop the machine! The water kept gushing!  Turn off the valves!  Mop up the carpet!  Pull out the soaking wet clothes and get them on a rack in the upstairs bath tub.  And figure out what to do next.  We've had the washer for almost 10 years, and never a need for repair.  Who do we call?  No idea.


Then there was Sunday.  I can't even remember why my husband walked down to the dug-out basement below the house, but it's a good thing he did -- there was a broken valve on the water pump gushing water into the basement.  He caught a shock trying to turn it off, so we went back in the house to figure out what to do next.  We do know of some plumbers in the area, so help was probably not too far away.

A call to the 24-hour plumbing service revealed that a Sunday visit would cost $110/hour, including travel time, which seemed a bit prohibitive.  We went to bed that night with the water still gushing, the wet clothes still dripping in the bath tub, and no clear idea when or how things were going to get fixed.  Oh, yes, it was raining most of the weekend, too.

I did say this was going to be a meditation on gratitude, though, so here comes the good part.  Even though the weekend started out queasy and tired, and it seemed as though the universe was determined to flood us out of our quiet little home, in the middle of the night my husband suddenly remembered a switch in the closet we fondly call "the cupboard under the stairs" that would turn the water off for the whole house.  A bit inconvenient, but it would stop that constant flow underneath the house.  Not the final fix, but it was the turning point.  We were able to get some sleep knowing that one thing was taken care of.

Monday morning came, and we got up extra early to shower at the gym at the school where we both work.  I've always hated locker rooms (long story there, not for today), but I found myself under the meager warm trickle of water actively deciding that instead of feeling sorry for myself for missing the wonderful hot shower I normally have, I would feel grateful that I had any shower at all.  It's so easy to forget that many people have nothing -- I was determined to be grateful for my something.

Later in the day I drove home to test the waters, so to speak.  We hadn't heard from the plumber since first thing when they said they'd get there that day, but we didn't know when, and hadn't heard the verdict.  I tiptoed into the kitchen and --Behold! -- the hot water tap yielded its normal flow.  I went into the basement and --Oh, Joy! -- no geysers of water over in the corner.  Things were looking up.

During the day I asked a colleague who I knew had needed a washing machine repaired recently for a reference, and by evening we had a phone number and a recommendation.  And upon coming home Monday evening we found the bill from the plumber -- the grand total was perhaps a quarter of what we were expecting.

Today I called the appliance repair service.  They're coming on Thursday, which is the perfect day since I'll be here all day to let them in.  I know it's Lent, but I'll say it anyway: Alleluia!  What a gift to have people nearby who can solve a problem, and the means to compensate them for their work.

Gratitude indeed: for physical healing, mechanical repair, time and money and resources to take care of what's temporarily out of whack.  And patience.  I know this post has gone on a bit, but that's deliberate.  It took time to resolve each of these issues, even though they all seemed to come on at once.  And it takes time to tell the story of how each little thing got taken care of.  But the story is worth telling, even if I'm the only one who ever reads it.  The stories of how we are cared for are so very important to tell, and to hear, and to remember.  The process of recognizing and sharing moments of good fortune is part and parcel of the discipline of gratitude, and so I offer you my modest meditation for the day. May you remember, and share, your own moments of gratitude, and in so doing, make your own life, and perhaps someone else's, a bit better.

Blessings,
Beth