Valentine's Gratitude

[salixbabylon]

On a more serious note, Valentine's day is about love. And the surest way to invite love into your life it so express gratitude for the love you have already received. Today's activity is to share a story about the most generous thing someone has done for you, recently or ever, big or small. Think hard, and post a new thread or leave a comment. :)


What springs to mind the most for me as I sit here at the moment, is a non-monetary moment of generosity - my friends Briya and Kristin. They each took care of Hershey while Gerald and I were in the UK and Iceland. They offered without my asking them directly (or indirectly).

Kristin has three kids, 11 to 6, one home school because of special needs. Her husband works full time, she works full time from home doing web design support, and they also have a dog. When she heard Hershey was having blood in his bowels three days before we planned to leave, she offered to take him, watch him carefully, give him all his medicine and special food, and update us about what was going on, in addition to her already super busy life. She had him for 14 days. Not only wouldn't she let us pay her, she keeps offering to have him come visit again.

Briya lives in a small studio with a bulldog who doesn't always get along with other dogs. She couldn't take Hershey at her home, but when he was at his second home (Kristin couldn't keep him for all 21 days, so he went to visit another friend, Catherine, for a week), Briya drove 30 min each way to walk him every day. When Hershey was driving Catherine and her cat insane and he moved to stay at our house for the last four days, Briya came over to hang out with him for a few hours, play, and just be company for him. She even spent the night with him once.

Both of them sent me emails throughout our trip letting me know how the dog was getting along, helping out with the disaster of him staying with Catherine, and being amazingly selfless with their time and their homes.

Gifts like that you can only repay in kind. :) I'm blessed to have them, to have such a great circle of friends - my spirit family.

Comments

[stormdog.livejournal.com]

Aw, that's so awesome! Yay!

[salixbabylon.livejournal.com]

Would love to see some examples from you too! :)

[princesslanie.livejournal.com]

true friends, hold on tight. hugs.

thanks for my candy hearts. hugs.

[salixbabylon.livejournal.com]

You're very welcome! :)

Would love to see some examples from you too!

[princesslanie.livejournal.com]

i know i only whibble and whine on here, makes me not so nice. i get more care and kind words on here from my friends than i do do in rl. the reason being i lost 99 percent of my "friends" when the hubby left and the one friend i have never wanted me to marry him so i don't even whine to her. i have a roof over my head and my sweet thumper with me, life is good.

[salixbabylon.livejournal.com]

Sometimes it's awfully hard to focus on the things you have to be grateful for. *hug*

[http://users.livejournal.com/tesserae_/]

I'm also incredibly fortunate to be surrounded by amazingly generous and creative people, so *hugs* to you for having found this family. And I ran across a quote the other day that touched on it as well: "Sartre was wrong. Heaven is other people..." (context was an article on atheism, fyi).

[salixbabylon.livejournal.com]

So very true. It all depeneds on which people you're looking at. :) *hug*

[elfscribe5.livejournal.com]

There are a lot of people who do kind, selfless things and it's important to celebrate that, when mostly what we hear about in the news are all those people committing atrocities. The largely unremarked heroes out there doing kind things are the glue that hold our society together. So thank you for sharing about your lovely friends who took care of your dog.

[salixbabylon.livejournal.com]

Exactly - the bad new is "news" and the good news is ignored. I think it should be the other wy around. I'd love to hear about some examples from your life! :)

[foxrafer.livejournal.com]

That's lovely; what truly special people.

[salixbabylon.livejournal.com]

:) Would love to see some examples from you too! :)