Gratitude

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Anonymous

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Photograph by Rafael DeLaVille '20

7 seconds. 7 seconds is all it takes to ask Siri to define a word. I’m pretty sure you guys all know what gratitude means, but just in case, I asked Siri, and she said, “Gratitude means ‘the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.’”

7 years. It took me 7 years to understand gratitude.

In class last week, we were talking about how rare it is to see an obituary on the front page of The New York Times. Epicurus, an ancient Greek philosopher, once said, “Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.” Epicurus

died in the year 270 BC, 2,290 years ago, and here I am today, nearly 2,300 years later, repeating his words. How long do you think the people who get their obituary on the front page of The New York Times will be remembered for? How long do you think you’ll be remembered for?

Here, I have a thank you letter from Justin C. O’Donnell, president of First Virginia Bank, to a man who saw a bank robber fleeing the scene, chased him down, and caught him. For that, he got athis letter of commendation from the Fairfax County Police Department and was “cordially invited to a reception and presentation ceremony in [his] honor.” He seems like a pretty cool dude, but his obituary was not on the front page of the New York Times. I did find it online though, and it was pretty generic: mentioned his greatest accomplishments and ended with, “However, his love and focus of his life was his wife and four children, to whom he devoted his constant affection. Michael Dewberry leaves behind his wife of 18 years, Stephanie Anne, and their four children.” I am the fourth child of Michael and Stephanie Dewberry.

7 years. I had 7 years with that “cool dude,” who I called dad. 7 years was all it took for my father to show me exactly who I wanted to be. 11 years and later and, speaking objectively, I have still never met anyone cooler than that man. SH, so obviously, he never talked to me about Epicurus, a Greek philosopher, but since I’m not Michael Dewberry, I can’t show you what such gratitude looks like, but I can tell you, “Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for,” so that the cheesy part of your obituary that says something along the lines of, the “love and focus of his life was his wife and four children, to whom he devoted his constant affection,” will be its most accurate statement. Then, and only then, will you not be forgotten, because, after 2,300 years, Epicurus exists through his message, not his actions. 7 seconds. You guys are seniors in high school; It took me 7 seconds to tell you what gratitude is, but do you understand it?

7 years. When I was 7 years old, I knew the word gratitude, but I knew it like Siri knows it.

7 more years. When I was 14 years old, I finally understood gratitude. After my dad died, it took me 7 more years to understand gratitude because I spent those 7 years wishing I could go home on my worst days and have someone there to tell me what to do, practicing gratitude by striving to live just like my dad, while spoiling what I had by desiring what I had not.

“7 years. I had 7 years with that 'cool dude,' who I called dad. 7 years was all it took for my father to show me exactly who I wanted to be"

It took me 7 more years to finally realize that I never lost my dad; 7 years to understand that I lost having someone I could go home to for the most warming hug, the best advice, and the strict guidance I needed, along with a massive bowl of ice cream, but I did not lose the person my father instilled in me.

“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”

7 years with my Dad, and I am inexplicably grateful for every one of them. Trust me when I say that my heart still aches every single day, but I am, in fact, grateful I lost him because, even if it took me 7 years to realize, I carry him with me, through everything I do. Today, through me, he exists, so today, I am grateful.