A Thousand Awesome Things

That's the name of a blog I heard about on the CBC yesterday (Click on the title for the link). As #1,001, I nominate the CBC. They keep expanding my world in the most interesting ways. The author of the blog, one Neil Pasricha,  vowed to find something awesome to write about every day for a thousand days. He's been finding awesome things to blog about since June, 2008. One of his reviewers said:

"A lovingly beautiful blog. It’s like being a three- or four-year-old and looking at the world for the first time again. Read it and you’ll feel good about being human.” (Jim Hedger, host of Webcology, Webmaster Radio)

Neil says there are days when he has to work hard to find something positive to write about -- like the day that his best friend killed himself. The awesome thing that day was #829 -- "Smiling and thinking of good friends who are gone." Most days, the things he finds are sweet and funny, like #981 -- "Wearing underwear just out of the dryer" and #812 -- "When you're drowning and then a dolphin comes to your rescue."

The blog is counting down from 1,000. Today's entry is #516 -- "Picking up something that turns out to be a lot lighter than you expected."

Neil's blog has now become a book. Good for him. I wish him great success. We need -- at any rate, I need -- to be reminded sometimes  just how awesome life is.

I had one of those reminders yesterday. I chatted with a young woman who told me a story.

Sarah had been having a rough time. She had just ended a six-year relationship. While she rebuilt her defenses, she went home to live with her parents for quite a while.  One morning, as was her habit, she went to the fridge and grabbed a few strawberries. Sarah loves strawberries. Suddenly, she realized that for all the months that she had been back at home, her parents had seen to it that there were always strawberries in the fridge for her.

Sarah refers to that as her "strawberry moment", the lightning-like realization that her parents were quietly loving her back to health, the moment when the depth of her parents' love became clear to her.

As I listened to Sarah, I couldn't help thinking of Angie Ledbetter (Gumbo Writer), whose mother passed away this week. Angie knows how much her mother loved her, and that is a blessing indeed. My heart goes out to Angie and her family.