Thank You

an attitude of gratitude

February 2025

My mother was an advocate of thank-you notes. She wrote them without hesitation on many occasions. Writing was both part of her education and her personality. As a Pisces, she had a dual nature. One aspect of her personality was her consistent reflection on people and events.

Using that part of herself to write letters impacted me in various ways.

The first way was the act of letter writing, which became ingrained in me. Seeing her write in the early morning, curled up in her favorite velvet chair, is an image I will never forget— coffee on the table, cat at her feet.

After moving a bunch in my 20s, I continued some friendships through letter writing.

The second way I was affected was by my love of receiving letters. Mom wrote to me in my 20s when I lived in NYC and San Fransisco. She sent letters to all five colleges I attended. Her quiet updates of life on the small peninsula we called home made me connect on how her life was going. Occasionally, there was an unexpected death or sadness when a neighbor was relocating. I was in my self-absorbed years. I wasn’t mature enough to understand how Mom was affected by stock market news or the death of dear friends.

Looking back, the cozy size of the stationery provided a comfortable container for me to write down my thoughts and feelings. Thinking about my friend as I wrote helped me observe more detail than I might have in my everyday life. Writing letters trained me to pause and reflect, which was not a natural pattern for my personality type when I was younger.

When her grandkids were little, she would ask us parents to make sure they wrote her a thank-you. After receiving their illustrated cards, Mom would pay them a dollar. It was very out of character for her to use money as a teaching tool. But like us new mothers, she was a “new grandmother” trying to find her way on the bumpy road of grandparenting.

Thank you notes symbolize much more than a minor social gesture. I can only imagine that a thank you note for Mom symbolized a well-brought-up person with enough scope of the bigger world to value a gesture that benefitted them. I don’t remember her explaining why thanking someone was so important; it was only that you should.

In my mid-twenties, I began studying with a “Prosperity Teacher” who had grown up Catholic and dreamed of being a nun. As she experienced life, studying Unity principles, Catherine Ponder and Louise Hay’s “You Can Heal Your Life,” she realized that creating her version of spiritual life was her life’s work.

As a Prosperity Teacher and business coach, she gathered quirky, self-employed students from around the country to study with her over the phone or in person twice a month.

She would host potluck dinners in group meetings, providing more than enough food and desserts. She’d ask everyone to bring something, and magic happened as we added to her abundant table! The result was more food than most of us were used to seeing. Our mouths watered! Year after year, she invited us to gatherings where bringing bags of small gifts, such as pens and paper, chocolates, or jam, was part of our monthly homework. Often, we would start our “check-in” by passing around our basket of gifts as we updated our Prosperity Group about our lives. At the night's end, we’d walk to our cars with full bellies, feeling heard, and a bag full of small gifts. She demonstrated gratitude to us.

I studied with her for over thirty years! (My time with her will be a book!) The gratitude lessons I began with Mom continued more in-depth with Toni and fellow students.

Toni died five years ago, and even before that, I had stopped keeping a daily Gratitude Journal.

It is time to begin again. The benefits of expressing gratitude are endless, and everyone agrees. It’s not weird and “Woo Woo” anymore. Gratitude is like planks or deep breathing and meditation. It’s proven to be GOOD FOR US!!!

I am ready to start my practice again. No, I’ll say: “I am beginning my gratitude journal again.” We always wrote in small 3” x 4” books. But I think I’ll use a Google sheet this time. If you’d like to be part of the community gratitude sheet, let me know in the comments, and I’ll send you a link. The gratitudes do not need to be earth-shattering!

I’m grateful for the warmth of my propane stove.

Grateful for strong coffee.

Thankful for the people who work in grocery stores.