From an email I received earlier today…….
Hey There!
Every year for Christmas, my wife’s side of the family each pick a name and we buy one nice gift for one person and last December, I picked my wife’s grandfather. That was great, except for one small problem.
Quite frankly, he was 95 years old, failing in health and living in assisted living which means he’d pretty much given away everything he owned.
What on earth would I give him that would have any actual meaning?
I racked my brain and came up with nothing.
Then it occurred to me…
How many of us ever get the joy of knowing how much love other people have for us?
We’ve all been to a funeral where people line up and share amazing stories and love for the one who passed and often I’ve thought… “I wonder if this person (the deceased) even knew how these people felt?”
And that’s when the light went off and I went to work.
I contacted everyone in the family (and it was a big family). For the next month, I collected personal letters from family members to my wife’s grandfather along with pictures and drawings from the grandchildren…
What I ended up with was a large scrapbook bursting with deep, heartfelt letters of love, respect and admiration for a man who was truly great.
Not only was it amazing to see the touching look on his face, but the JOY everyone else had when grandpa opened his gift.
We all had the opportunity to express our love and gratitude and thanksgiving and the timing was perfect because Grandpa passed away a few months ago.
Gratitude in my opinion is one of the most overlooked tools that we all have access to. Cultivating gratitude doesn’t cost any money, it takes very little time, but the benefits are enormous… both for us and those we express it to.
According to Robert A Emmons, PhD., a leading gratitude researcher, gratitude reduces a multitude of toxic emotions, ranging from envy and resentment to frustration and regret.
I could bore you with the research that shows how valuable love and gratitude is for our health, but I don’t think you need proof.
Instead, I want to encourage you with something we can all do right now…
Call someone you love and respect (maybe a child, parent, grandparent, family member, friend or co-worker) and give them the good news.
Tell them how much they mean to you and how much you care about them.