I AM GRATEFUL …

Julie Edwards

Twelve days into my holiday, I was bored.

I have this view that holidays are necessary, that it’s important to stop, to create space. But maybe it was too drastic going from flat out at work to flat on my back doing nothing, watching the rain obliterate any chance of even a brief diversion to the beach. I snatched the odd walk, read a bit, did a crossword, went out for coffee, watched a bit of telly. That’s it.

But not quite. My holiday was occurring against the backdrop of possibly the worst natural disaster in our living memory–the earthquake and tsunamis in the Indian Ocean. Like many, I became obsessed with those events. And, like many, that context set the stage for the big questions–though, truth is, they were there anyway.

When you stop, lots of things come up–like, am I really good at my job? Do I like it? Should I do be doing something else? And more … I’m 49 (OK, nearly 50) and what have I achieved? My life’s two-thirds over and I haven’t set the world on fire like I wanted to and looks like I’m not going to now. Whatever made me think I could?

Then come the really big questions. What’s it all about anyhow? Am I just suffering from delusions of grandeur to think that I could (should) be having some bigger impact on the world of suffering and injustice? Is it all about facing myself, learning to live comfortably with myself, with whatever I can do, to be content to be a drop in the ocean? Is the rest just self-important posturing?

The weather improved, and I got out and about. But the feelings intensified, not diminished. So, three weeks into my holiday, I found myself lying on the beach weeping gently. If someone noticed me they would assume I was a desperate woman–perhaps one of the unfortunate people who had lost someone in the tsunami in Asia, or awaiting news of a loved one who had not yet rung in to say that all was well.

Two days after the tsunami, I was on the beach when a young girl about 15 years suddenly started wailing. I looked over and saw she was clutching her mobile phone. Her mother, father and friends rushed to her. She could not speak so each in turn took the phone from her and read the text message that had turned her world upside down. They hugged her, supported her and ultimately someone carried her from the beach as the others quietly packed up their belongings, themselves looking grief-stricken.

I made the assumption she had received bad news about a friend swept to her death by the sea. But it might as easily have been a friend wiped out by a car, or by drugs or by suicide … I’ll never know. I never saw any of them at the beach again. That was probably the end of their holiday. But that was not why I was weeping at the beach that day.

My tears arose in the first place from a deep sense of gratitude–not gratitude against, as it were, others’ tragedy. Just gratitude for what I have.

I wept with thanks for my 19-year-old son, who is smart and funny, and was cavorting on the beach with his girlfriend. I felt delighted that he was on holiday with us, that he was happy to be with us. This is his first love and she is warm and sweet. I’m pleased to see what he is like in this relationship. He is playful, affectionate, attentive. I love seeing the young man he is becoming. He gives me such pleasure.

I felt grateful for my 17-year-old daughter who warms my heart. She is solid and good and true. She rang from France to tell me in amazement how good people are–the family she was staying with who have five children and have recently adopted a baby with Down syndrome and, on top of that, have taken her in and made her at home; the people in Paris who emailed her to say they would be at the train to pick her up. These are all people with no direct relationship with us–no blood ties, no foreseeable way that they are ever going to benefit from us in a manner similar to how they are bestowing kindness on our girl. Simply good, generous people.

I felt grateful for my 14-year-old daughter, a dancer, who is sensitive, thoughtful and gracious. I am proud of how she is learning to manage her intensity–that wound that worries her yet delivers up to her finely tuned insights that pass others by. She is a joy to me. The beauty of her body and the gracefulness of her movements never cease to amaze me.

I am grateful for my husband who is clear-headed, implacable, slow to pass judgment and willing to believe the best. He nourishes us with his cooking and he makes what we all have possible.

As I lay still on the beach, my gratitude kept extending. Across my consciousness passed my family of origin, my family through marriage, my friends, the people I work with, the actual work I do–and I gave thanks.

Lying there soaking up the physical beauty of the place–the warm, clean sand, the glorious blue water and the sky airbrushed with clouds–the irony of the circumstances didn’t escape me.

I wasn’t weeping with any sense of relief for somehow having been saved from the sorrow others were experiencing. I don’t carry a sense of being exempt. The family I was born into already bore the burden of one son who had died. The family I married into were soon to have one son die in a car crash. And I’ve worked for years with people–dozens of them, hundreds of them–who were just going about their business when death visited them.

No, I don’t have any sense of being exempt, protected, safe. I know that we are all vulnerable, however much we plot and plan to keep disaster at bay. But right then I was simply grateful–grateful for everything I have been given, grateful for the beauty of this world.

I wasn’t bored any more.

Julie Edwards is Executive Director of Jesuit Social Services, an organisation that works with disadvantaged young people, families and communities and works to affect social change. She has worked for 30 years with people experiencing grief, loss and trauma.