welcome November 22, 2004 Issue

Remembering to be grateful

Marilyn Jones

How unfair my parents were to me. Or anyway, that's what I was thinking. All I'd asked for was a new ski jacket — but a nice one, not some cheap knock-off from the Post Exchange, where my dad usually went for bargains. But they refused my insistent pleading, demanding, whining. Finally, completely frustrated and feeling tragically sorry for myself, I tore out the front door, jumped in the car, and gunned off down the street.

As I crossed the big bridge over Newport Bay, I spotted a man walking along in a beautiful, expensive ski jacket — just like I wished I had. "Lucky YOU!" I mumbled belligerently to myself. "You get EVERYTHING!" Just as the words made it out of my mouth, the man turned, and I realized that one arm of the jacket was pinned up. He had only one arm.

I know. It sounds made up, it's so classic. But it really did happen. And it taught me a humbling, deeply felt, and ongo ing life-lesson about gratitude: To be thankful and satisfied with the abundance and goodness I already have.

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