My mother was such an integral part of my life, it seemed preposterous to me that she could be gone from it forever. Her death showed me just ho vulnerable I am. I realized in ways I never had before, that I too am going to die one day. I remember how my mother, when she entered her eighties, would rise before dawn to see the beginning of a new day. She always felt grateful for having lasted another night.

She prayed for about two hours every morning. Her first prayer was always one of thanksgiving. After she died, I found myself waking earlier, too, trying to catch a glimpse of the sunrise. I felt privileged now to see the sun come up. It was a privilege my mother no longer enjoyed.

Sometimes this cherishing would strike me in the oddest places. I remember going into a deli and ordering a corned beef sandwich. I suddenly burst into tears right there at the table at the sight of slices of corned beef lying on a bed of pumpernickel. I thought of how my mother love corned beef and pastrami sandwiches.
When I was in college, we would mark the start of a new semester by shopping in New York, then stopping by the Carving Board restaurant at Macy’s for a sandwich. I felt horrible that my mother could no longer have this pleasure. I felt guilty that I could.
Then it occurred to me that one way of cherishing those memories is to go to a deli every once in a while and order a corned beef or pastrami sandwich, to give thanks for those memories, and in so doing, honor my mother. It is a way of saying, “I am living. I remember you.”
A few years ago, I began doing nightly what St. Ignatius of Loyola called the examen. It is a daily accounting of what I did well each day and of where I fell short. I also list all that happened that I’m grateful for. It is my favorite part of the examen. The funny thing about gratitude is, the more you focus on it, the more you find to be grateful for. These days, I find myself more and more grateful for the most ordinary of moments — when I look out on the ever-changing prairie as I drive from Chicago to Charley’s and my home in central Illinois. As I walk past our living-room windows in the middle of the day and spot the sunlight sifting in through a latticework of branches.

In the final scene of the film American Beauty, the main character, Lester Burnham, speaking from the grave, says he doesn’t feel regret that he’s no longer alive, only intense gratitude “for every single moment of my stupid little life.” Then he adds: “you have no idea what I’m talking about, I’m sure. But don’t worry, someday you will.”

From Twenty Poems to Nourish Your Soul
by Judith Valente and Charles Reynard