This is nice, but why don't we share our gratitude for them in other times?
This morning I woke up to the smell of fresh sheets in my grandparent's extra bedroom. I spent the first few hours of my day baking cookies with my grandma and reminiscing on old memories. Before I stepped out the door, I gave my grandma a huge hug.
Then she started tearing up. I'm not writing this blog to exaggerate an intimate moment, but it was heart-wrenching. In two weeks, my grandma is going in for open heart surgery. Today was our last day spending quality time together before she goes in.
In that 20 seconds while we embraced each other in our arms, I swelled up with emotions. My mind flooded with flashbacks of the two of us together... Grandma giving me bread crumbles to feed the ducks when I was a toddler, Grandma holding my hand as we skipped to the park together down the block, Grandma teaching me how to sew.
I understood how much she meant to me and how much I loved her. I'm not trying to sound sappy; I just want to be real.
As I hit the wet roads to drive to work, I started thinking about tragedy and how significant of an impact it leaves on a person.
I've never experienced the death of a loved one. The only tragic moments I've experienced are severally ill or injured friends and family members.
But even in these "less" tragic moments, that's when our feelings of care and affection will flock over one person. They'll receive phone calls, gifts and visits, but when the person recovers and moves on, the people surrounding them move on too.
This isn't always the case; but generally we never seem to take extra time out of our days and recognize the people in our lives. In today's modern American society, we are always on the "dash-and-go" mode. We rarely take time to go out of our days to bless a person with words of encouragement or gifts of appreciation. It's just, well... too much for us.
We miss out on divine opportunities to lift a person up on a day when they're walking through the dumps, even if they're still wearing a smile on their face. Or simply givng them an extra boost to keep persevering.
What I'm trying to say is this: Don't just love on a person in their moments of despair and great need, love on them ALWAYS.
A person many need your love during tragedy the most, but don't ever stop sharing messages of encouragement and staying connected with them even while they're walking on top of the world. Because every bit of love adds up in the end.
That's how you define who a real friend is. Someone who genuinely cares for you, during every moment of your life - the good, the bad, the ugly, the amazing, the unbelievable. A person who loves you for no matter who you are and what you're going through is someone worth sticking with.
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