On Gratitude

To me, gratitude is an underrated virtue.

It took me a while to realize this.

When I was young, I didn’t necessarily feel the world owed me a living, but, rather, I took a lot of things for granted.

As I look in the rearview mirror of life, I realize just how fortunate I was.

To have had the parents I had, for one.

Two days ago was my mother’s birthday.

She is long gone now.

I reminded her offspring how lucky we were to have had her during the formative years of our lives and asked them to take a moment to reflect on that.

Some things you can go back and relive.

Like taking classes when you’re older that you may have missed in school the first time around.

One brother is retired.

He lives alone and still drives.

He is fortunate to live in a college town and takes various classes.

He is almost certainly older than the teacher and probably the eldest student.

I commend him; that is a great way to keep the mind active.

For me, auto mechanics was an example of such a class.

I never had an opportunity to take that class when I was in high school.

I compressed 4 years into 3, which in retrospect was not a good idea.