Living A Life Of Gratitude: September, 2020

“I am grateful for what I am and have; My Thanksgiving is Perpetual” Henry David Thoreau

The month of September is full of birthdays; it’s a month of celebrations. There is a list of birthdays of almost 6 of them who are close to us. We love to celebrate birthdays and we are happy to visit and appreciate and affirm all these lovely girls.

I am grateful to God for the gift of Diana, Kusuma, Tabitha, Maria Dorothy, Arushi, and Faustina. 6 birthdays to celebrate and each had their own ways to celebrate – over all we had plenty of food, variety of cakes, deserts and snacks. We had to keep a check on counting calories as the food was tempting and delicious and sometimes we end up eating more. I am grateful that I could go out and do a little shopping and surprise the birthday girls, and so happy to see them smiling as they took their gifts.

I am grateful for the gift of my daughter Maria Dorothy, as she turned 19. We were happy that God has been faithful in every step of her life. We offered thanks giving mass and took her to church, with beautiful memories of how we have come this far – thinking of every person who were part of our life and her life too. The hospital, the doctor who took care of my pregnancy and my mom and sister in law where I stayed for a month, so many thoughts of gratitude as I sat in the church with thanksgiving in my heart.

Dorothy’s friends gave her a surprise party and another close friend spent the day with us. Evening we had her aunty and few neighboring kids with whom she plays shuttle and carroms, her friends came as she cut the cake and they were there singing and having fun. It was a tiring day for me – but I am grateful for I wanted my daughter to enjoy her 19^th Birthday she completes her teenage to move into another year of her life.

On the work front I had been going to work almost every other day depending on the situation. I was bringing work home and completing it with timeline due to technical issues with office computer. I am grateful for my desktop which I use on a regular basis and comes to my rescue to finish my works. I am glad that students and faculty have started visiting our new centre and our office is well set to get into normal functioning. There were telecounseling sessions especially with those students who have already been visiting me before lock down. Some of them who know me personally also visited the centre for counselling.

I am grateful for the organisations we partner with that are working despite the risk – I could refer a victim of Domestic Violence and follow up with her… sometimes all you can do is just listen and be present to them.

This month being the World Suicide Prevention day we had a few sensitization programme from our centre. I did my part in assisting for the progrmames organised by the University – I was involved in preparing the material for these sessions and looking for the latest data on suicide globally and also in our country.

I am grateful for the work I do and there was enough and more work to keep me occupied, there was annual report to submit as per University time line, a couple of sessions on Sexual harassment and organizing Zoom meeting for our students session on Suicide Prevention.I made a blog post on September 10^th, 2020 which I combined with the Tree Love posts hosted by Parul.

I am grateful for my niece Nissi Marilyn came home surprising Dorothy one weekend and made her cut the cake, and spent a day with her.. it was opportunity for me to do some cooking as I appreciate her thoughtfulness for coming over and spending the day with us.

The following weekend my nephew Sunny Emmanuel came with his family, his daughter and Dorothy share the same date; it always a joy and fun to have the kids at home, we played carroms and the kids played shuttle and there was music and plenty of interactions with good food and delicious cake, Dorothy was counting the number of cakes she has cut for this birthday, this was the 6^th one and she was grateful and happy. I am thankful to God for the small joys in life, for the thoughtfulness of the my nephew and his family to make the day special for my daughter Dorothy.

There was a death of one of my friend’s sister, it was sad to hear, a reminder for me once again that anything can happen in life, anytime to anybody. One needs to live life to the fullest mindfully being aware of every thing that is happening in our lives, making the right choices and enjoy the small little things, being grateful that we are alive in spite of the pandemic that is impacted the whole world.

I am grateful that all of us are busy both managing and sharing household work and also taking care of our own academic deadlines and careers. This month September month was short for me; this month brought happiness, joy, celebration, and also connected with friends, and loved ones so many times in this month, that it ended soon and within two to three days time we will be stepping into another month.

Grateful to God for the doctors who are always available to consult; and are kind and generous to take tele calls and advice, I was having some discomforts in my right hand and I was thinking it could be because of working on my system and on consulting the doctor I found that it was a vitamin deficiency and accordingly could handle it.

There were lots of surprises in this month in terms of meeting &visits of loved ones and also a variety of food on the table on different days of the month. I even tried Banana Walnut cake once again and this time I succeeded in making it. On the whole this month was a happy, inspiring and fulfilling despite the environment I could accomplish everything that I was committed for and am eternally grateful for everyone and everything that surrounds me and my life to be able relive and relish moments.

I thank vidya for initiating this process of forming a gratitude circle and inviting everyone to share the monthly gratitude post..If you are interested in joining the Gratitude Circle:

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Post it on the last Thursday of the month and

Add your link to the Gratitude Circle. https://vidyasury.com/