I do remember though when my uncle, who raised me and stood like a rock by my side throughout my 40 years (along with my mom), was diagnosed (and 7 months later, died from) leukemia - how devastated I was. People, in an effort to comfort me, would sometimes say that I was lucky to have him all the years that I did… that he was 73 and how much worse it is when younger people and children die of illness.

This made me feel totally alone because although the logic in my head tells me that it IS horrible for children to die (and suffer from illness) as well as individuals younger in age. I wanted my uncle to live. He had so much more to give and to do. He was the grandfather to my kids. They adored him and he impacted their lives (and mine) tremendously. If he wasn’t going to live, I didn’t want him to suffer as much as he did during his illness. That sucked big time and also took an enormous emotional toll on me.

Of course, I did have support from close friends but in the end, withdrew and kept the pain to myself.

Thank you so much for posting this.

While I am, happily and thankfully, in a surprisingly long period of deep and profound gratitude for my life and family, that doesn’t mean I don’t sometimes resent my mother’s inability to manage her own life, hate my husband for not listening to me, or get frustrated and scared about being laid off. And that’s all ok and good.

I was raised in a family where it was not ok to have negative feelings. In fact, it wasn’t until my early 20s that I realized I got mad. I thought I just didn’t have that emotion! (Yeah, that was an interesting week when I figured out I do get mad.)

But, mostly, it has never, ever made sense to me to have awful things happen to you and supposed to be grateful it’s not worse. Or even grateful the awful thing has happened to you. Sure, I’ve turned a lot of horrible things into good things (my husband almost died, and it really proved we can handle anything life throws at us, which was handy when a few years later my m-i-l committed suicide). Feeling bad about your crappy situation does not mean you can’t still feel badly for other people’s crappy situations. But you can’t deny your own.

Thanks for posting this.

A favorite quote of mine is by Elizabeth Taylor, “The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be pretty sure they’re going to have some pretty annoying virtues.”

AMEN!

I once had a mother in law who, whenever I expressed any minute lack of confidence, would pour on the compliments to “build me up”. If I had a simple lament that my pie might not be a yummy as I wanted, she would throw embarrassingly over the top compliment to “help” my self esteem. If I made a passing comment about someone who annoyed me, she would “show” me how to be a gracious person by reaching out for prayer. I was a young and somewhat insecure bride. I let her make me worse. By the time I divorced her son I barely spoke to her because I wanted to protect myself from her “help”.

People like these women try to make perfectly strong wonderful people feel bad. They do this to make themselves feel smug, centered and in charge. Sorry, but this formally has leaned that occasional everyday annoyances are a part of life and don’t need to be combated with prayer or positivity.

I “get” that some people (probably a really small percentage of the human race) are genuinely positive, thankful people who are great at finding that silver lining. I am pleased to know a few of them. The difference between an honestly good person and “annoying virtue” person is that persons ability to say “I know - I also hate it when the pie doesn’t turn out! Let’s cover it with whipped cream and eat the whole damn thing anyway.”

Delia Lloyd
http://www.realdelia.com

I agree with you that gratitude isn’t necessary being glad that your life is as it is and not worse (or the life of someone less fortunate. BTW, who is to say that your life is better than others?) I also believe that we should allow people to feel what they feel and not try to tell them differently. Being grateful, feelings and, even, life are personal endeavors. Who are we (the Internet talking heads) to tell people how to proceed?

Great post. Thank you for writing it.