Set yourself up for it – #111
Sweet and short.
A couple years ago, I sent my parents a list of questions. I wanted to add a little context to the reality of them as people rather than parents. I had individual questions like asking my mom “any great dates you care to share pre-Dad?” and asking my dad “what surprised you about having a daughter?” But most questions were the same for both of them:
What are your favorite things about each other?
What's the best meal you ever had?
When you're dead, what do you hope reminds me of you?
If I got a tattoo to honor you, what would it be?
How do you want to be remembered?
What do you think is your best trait?
What's the best advice you've ever received and who gave it to you?
What are some of your favorite memories?
Do you remember your grandparents describing their lives? What did they say?
What do you believe in?
What's one thing you don't want me to forget about you or our family?
In the years when you're gone, if you could yell one piece of advice from the heavens when I'm down, what would it be?
Some of these things I could guess. The things we haven’t shared are often out of respect and not much else. Despite how much I love my parents, I’m not a particularly saccharine person when it comes to family. I’d rather spend a month in jail than hang a sign that says Family in my house. My parents raised me to be an individual, and that’s how I see myself. I mention this because I don’t want to give the impression that asking these questions was a sweet moment. Instead, it was so palpably cringe-inducing that I had to send them over email and step away from the computer.
But I didn’t ask the questions for the girl sending the email. I asked the questions for the girl who won’t have anyone to send that email to.
It’s common knowledge at this point that practicing gratitude improves your well-being. It anchors you in the present, boosts your mood, and helps that mood stay boosted. But on my good days I find rote gratitude tedious and repetitive, and on my worst, I find it insulting and diminishing of the big, bad feelings bullying their way to the stage. A gratitude practice didn’t make me feel gratitude. Instead, I started to try things I thought might make me grateful in the future.
I’m not talking about unloading the dishes the night before or running a mile every day. There are myriad things you can do for “future you” as favors, but I’m not sure all of them inspire gratitude. Instead, I mean things like writing down gift ideas months and months in advance, creating photo albums in your phone so you can easily find just the right shot, and asking your loved ones for future omens.
At the dinner table this past Thursday surrounded by friends, I couldn’t help but realize the thing I felt most grateful for was our petsitters. They were and are strangers to us. Because our cats were somehow all on medication, we didn’t want to leave the burden to a friend and instead wanted someone who felt comfortable medicating them. It would be better for the person and the animals. So we used a service, found a couple, and then found ourselves a 17-hour drive away from the mountains, hoping these people were as reliable as promised. “We can always turn around,” we kept telling ourselves. They were driving across the state to stay in a house they’d never been to with animals they’d never met. They were taking a chance on us, but we were leaving them with our family.
Then the photos came rolling in: Link on his back, paws outstretched through a pile of garland. Banzet napping on the man’s butt while he laid in front of the fire. And Finn, locked in his room with his cone, curled up in the woman’s legs.
The animals were happy. All of them. They were loved and medicated and cuddled through the night. And I thought, “god I’m so grateful I signed up for that service, that it worked, that we met them, that the cats are OK.”
Gratitude doesn’t always come easy. But it comes easier when you set yourself up for it.
How do you set yourself up?
I gave my mom a book titled 'All About You' and asked her to write in it. It asked questions on all subjects. She not only wrote in it, but threw in some important pictures and a couple of recipes. I carry that book around, in a box. When I think of her I pull it out and the words and pictures give me a lot of relief. She's been gone a long time in body, but her words and spirit keep me fresh and alive with her. (I gave the same book to my dad, he filled out 2 questions and gave up. He wrote me a letter and gave me 'A Short Guide to a Happy Life' by Anna Quindlen, and signed it with a short note.) I was raised independent also, and back then, knew because I had a small family that someday I'd need comfort, and this was how I set myself up.
This brought tears to my eyes. Not long ago we learned my mom has less than 6 months to live. These are the questions I yearn to know the answers to, but have felt too awkward to ask. Now I just might.