Comments on: Gratitude http://billypacholskiblog.com/3 Sun, 25 Jul 2010 18:27:18 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: admin http://billypacholskiblog.com/3/comment-page-1#comment-4 admin Sat, 14 Feb 2009 00:17:15 +0000 http://billypacholskiblog.com/?p=3#comment-4 Thank you so much for your reply, Liz. I'm so glad that my post touched you. Thank you so much for your reply, Liz. I’m so glad that my post touched you.

]]> By: Elizabeth Futrell http://billypacholskiblog.com/3/comment-page-1#comment-3 Elizabeth Futrell Sat, 14 Feb 2009 00:10:04 +0000 http://billypacholskiblog.com/?p=3#comment-3 I just read your blog on gratitude and it brought me to tears. Gratitude is something that has been on my mind a lot lately. To be incredibly blunt, my dad committed suicide in November. Needless to stay, the last few months have been an emotional struggle. Part of my struggle is to let gratitude for what was overcome the emptiness and sorrow over what will never be. I always saw him as a grandpa, holding my babies and smiling. This will never happen. I have to simply be grateful for those memories of when he held me, smiling. Milan captured my feeling well: he compared it to how you feel when you finish an incredible book. The book was brilliant, but once you've finished, if you try to go back and re-read your favorite parts, they don't have the same effect because now you know how the book ends. I want to be able to get to a point eventually where I can think of my dad without my memories of him being stained with the knowledge of how his life ended. I don't want his end to define him. Our lives should define us, not our deaths. I think the gratitude is at the center of this effort to remember the good and somehow make peace with the bad. Thank you for putting your thoughts out there so honestly and eloquently. I just read your blog on gratitude and it brought me to tears. Gratitude is something that has been on my mind a lot lately. To be incredibly blunt, my dad committed suicide in November. Needless to stay, the last few months have been an emotional struggle. Part of my struggle is to let gratitude for what was overcome the emptiness and sorrow over what will never be. I always saw him as a grandpa, holding my babies and smiling. This will never happen. I have to simply be grateful for those memories of when he held me, smiling.

Milan captured my feeling well: he compared it to how you feel when you finish an incredible book. The book was brilliant, but once you’ve finished, if you try to go back and re-read your favorite parts, they don’t have the same effect because now you know how the book ends. I want to be able to get to a point eventually where I can think of my dad without my memories of him being stained with the knowledge of how his life ended. I don’t want his end to define him. Our lives should define us, not our deaths. I think the gratitude is at the center of this effort to remember the good and somehow make peace with the bad.

Thank you for putting your thoughts out there so honestly and eloquently.

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