Today I Am Grateful for the Journey

Today I am grateful. 

 I celebrate  the day I was born 

in a small town in
Northern Ontario, Canada;
5th child of 7 all told. Daniel,

my oldest brother,  only lived a 

couple of days and though 

I never got to meet him
in person I believe he is here, 

present in my life,
 big brother to all of his siblings.


Today, I am grateful 

for my dad,

who left too soon, too fast.
He told me often, Noli Timere, 

Be Not Afraid and taught me to embrace life

 with humour, no matter the situation; 

 his glass was always half full.  

And for my mom, 

 our quiet,  steady centre of hospitality to whom,

 now, many years later I can say 

I am grateful that "I am just like you...." 

 (uh, I'm not exactly quiet).


Today I am grateful,

 for my younger brother and sister,

 Jon and Pati, 

and for my three older siblings,
Margie, Rick and Marty;

 I am blessed to have been
born into their embrace.

For Jeff, my husband

 and Alec, our son,

for enriching my life

with your love,

I am grateful.

I am grateful

for family and friends

 and dogs
who make my world
a blessed placed. 

I am grateful 

for this journey,
for waking every day
to the freedom to choose.

The Journey
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
you knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

            Mary Oliver