The Daily G.I.F.T. from The GratiDude

Spread the manure in your life garden when grief season comes….. now remember to plug your nose with faith and patience. Vegetables are coming!!

July 30, 1984 has become a sacred day for me.  This was 48 hours after my father had chosen to take his own life. I was 15 years old catatonic hadn’t eaten in 48 hours and was in a state of shock.

My bedroom at the time was in the basement of the house that we had moved to after we had moved out of our childhood home, it was a rental that didn’t have a bedroom for me so my mom had someone throw up a simple frame inside the open basement so I could at least have some walls which is where I was when I heard the call that “Rusty was here, come upstairs now. “

So I did.

I don’t remember that part, but I must’ve come upstairs because I was standing on the porch when Rusty said in his coach voice “get in the van”. 

In most cases, kids are trained to run when they hear that from a grown man, but in this case, it was perfectly safe as I had had spent lots of hours coming and going to games and practices inside Rusty’s speed up green van with no seats filled with all sorts of different different types of equipment and balls at all times. 

Rusty, coached and support athletes with all of his spare time as he is preparing to go into teaching and coaching, which is subsequently for a full 30 years plus and recently retired from the Ann Arbor Public schools.

Rusty told me we were going to get pizza and my friends were there and I was overcome with love in one of the saddest periods of my life, I knew that I had experienced the miracle and superpower of gratitude and more importantly I knew that God in the universe given it to me specifically to conspire for my happiness, and to share it with you the person who is reading this right now. Not someone else but with you. 

You can imagine some of the swirling thoughts that occurred to me when Grayson Murray of the PGA tour took his life 48 hours ago, and all of the grief thoughts that that stir up for anybody that is experienced a suicide in their friends and family circle, or anyone that is into Golf and knew about Grayson and his struggles and his career.

https://www.marca.com/en/golf/2024/05/27/66545be6268e3e9b588b4576.html

However, his family and all of us that were impacted by this have the opportunity to find out unfortunately, grief is the most fertile ground for gratitude that I can think of.

Here’s Harry Higgs on that, and I think Big Sexy nails it:

https://www.nbcsports.com/golf/news/kft-winner-harry-higgs-pays-tribute-to-grayson-murray-say-something-nice-to-others

Say Something Nice to Others.

That’s Harry’s Message.

And, The GratiDude’s Request of YOU!

Do it.

Say something nice to someone you have never said something nice to. See how THAT feels please.

At the end of the day suffering through loss is just like that man that you spread on your garden that at the time stinks and smells and feels just like what it is shit from an animal.

However, that and waste combined with the soil of mother earth creates a biological transformation of the ground that produces energy and nutrients that will spur the growth of nourishing fruits and vegetables and herbs from this very same piece of land.

Our suffering times of grief will lead to the wisdom and the knowledge of self that are just like the fruits in our garden that with patients and cultivation love and care will feed us for many days.

More on what Food comes from Grief here, it sucks, but please remember lemonade comes from sour-ass lemons too, Sister:

Once again, gratitude proves effective requires patience and more times than not it is faith that fuels our patience.

I keep showing up here every day, and I hope you realize that I’m sincere when I say I’ll do anything I can to help you understand the power and the ease that you can and perpetuate your own Attitude of Gratitude.

EVERY DAY:

Love

and

Gratitude

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