gratitude Archives - Epilepsy Dad

‘Tis the Season

This year for Thanksgiving, we decided to do something different and we traveled back to Colorado to spend it with our goddaughter’s family.

Colorado will always be a special place for me. I met my wife there, and we had our son there. We also have some of the best friends anyone could ask for who still live there. But as much as our son wants it to be some days, it’s not home anymore.

For a few days, though, it felt pretty close, largely because of the people we were surrounded by over the holidays.

Growing up, my family would gather at my grandparent’s house. There were 14 of us: grandparents, parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins. My grandmother would cook while the rest of the family would gather in various rooms to catch up. When it was time for dinner, the adults would sit around the big table in the dining room while the kids would be at a smaller table in the kitchen. Even at different tables, we were still together.

The holidays were different after I moved with my parents to Florida. Occasionally, we’d have family members visiting for Thanksgiving or Christmas, but most of the time, it was just us, and it didn’t feel as festive or warm (except for the temperature).

I felt that sense of togetherness again when I celebrated Thanksgiving with a friend’s family after I moved to Colorado. Even though I was alone in Colorado, being with a family during the holiday gave me a sense of place.

The first few years after I met my wife, we began spending holidays with her family, and it wasn’t seamless. A pending in-law divorce with complicated family dynamics made some conversations uncomfortable, and my wife and I were also going through challenges, even before our son started having seizures. We had wonderful moments, but it was never easy.

Our Pennsylvania holidays were also challenging because our lives continued to become more difficult. With our son’s eventual diagnosis and our struggles with epilepsy, the strain our history put on us and our marriage, and evolving family dynamics and personalities, the holidays weren’t always something we looked forward to. Again, we had wonderful moments, but the effort and stress of pulling it off were exhausting. The holidays sometimes felt like they took more than they gave.

That is what made this year special. We were with people who were happy and grateful to be together. Even though it wasn’t with the family we were born into, it felt like a family we belonged to and the family we needed. It also reminded me of the holidays growing up, a feeling I wasn’t sure I would ever feel again.

Thankful and Grateful

Today is Thanksgiving in the United States.

While we aren’t the only country that celebrates Thanksgiving, the holiday is widely celebrated in the United States as a time of gratitude and togetherness.

In our household, we have a nightly routine that has evolved over the years. It includes reflecting on something we are grateful for. Even if we are too tired to do the full routine, we never skip our “grateful for.”

That led me to wonder about Thanksgiving being a day about gratitude and the difference between being thankful and grateful. According to the vast library of truth that is the internet, gratitude encompasses both being thankful and being grateful, but even though the terms thankful and grateful are often used interchangeably, they have subtle differences in meaning and emotional nuance:

Thankful

Definition: Being aware of and expressing appreciation for something good that has happened or for a specific benefit received. Thankful is usually tied to a specific moment or event (short-term and outward-focused).
Focus: Often more situational and reactive; tied to specific actions, events, or gestures.
Example:
“I’m thankful for the gift you gave me.”
“She felt thankful for the sunny weather during her picnic.”

Grateful

Definition: A deeper sense of appreciation and acknowledgment, often tied to an enduring or broader sense of thankfulness. Grateful reflects a more profound, ongoing state of appreciation (long-term and inward-focused).
Focus: Goes beyond immediate circumstances and often reflects a heartfelt acknowledgment of a relationship, life situation, or intrinsic value.
Example:
“I’m grateful for having a supportive family.”
“He felt grateful for the lessons he learned from his challenges.”

With my newfound knowledge of the nuances of gratitude, I think about how it applies to the language I use in the context of my son’s epilepsy.

I am thankful that our son has access to medicine that helps reduce his seizures. I am thankful for the doctors and nurses who cared for him during his surgery. And I am thankful he has a friend who helped him catch up when our son returned to school.

I am grateful for the support of his friends and his school. I am grateful to live where he can access specialists and get the care he needs. I am grateful for the lessons I have learned from our son’s challenges.

I’m not sure it’s perfect, but in the end, regardless of the words we use, it’s the feeling that matters. Gratitude improves our overall well-being and strengthens relationships by fostering positive emotions, encouraging mutual appreciation, deepening connections, and helping us focus on the good in ourselves, others, and the world around us.

On a day intended to celebrate gratitude and togetherness, I think that’s what matters, whatever language we use.

Because this post mentions Thanksgiving, it’s also important to be mindful that its origins are tied to events that some Native Americans associate with colonization and the loss of land, culture, and lives. If you’d like to learn more, please read about the National Day of Morning, which is observed by many Native Americans on Thanksgiving and is a time to honor their ancestors and reflect on the historical and ongoing injustices faced by Indigenous peoples due to colonization.

Thank You. That’s True.

I think, as parents, we all have ideas of doing better than our parents did.

We want to pass along what we think our good qualities are to our children and not project our bad qualities on them.

I have a hard time accepting compliments. I don’t let them in. I minimize their effect on me by deflecting. I smile, but I filter them. I minimize them by deflecting credit. Or by telling myself that the person is wrong. I know the other person is wrong. They don’t know all the details. If they did, they wouldn’t have complimented me. I punish myself with the words. Pride is a sin.

I shrink when someone compliments me. My son grows. When we praise him, I see him get bigger. I see him smile. He likes for me to tell other people the story of him doing something well, a good choice he made on the baseball field, or something cool he did playing Fortnite.

I’ve been trying to follow my son’s lead and let compliments in. My therapist suggested, rather than trying to convince the complimenter why they are wrong (even if I only do it in my head), I instead respond with “Thank you. That’s true.”

At first, I practiced with my wife, and the words were coated with so much sarcasm that they were unrecognizable. The words were fighting so many years of programming that I needed to cover them with something to get them through. It was like dipping broccoli in cheese to get a child to eat healthy food.

Compliments are my broccoli. Sarcasm is my cheese.

While it’s a fine way to start, the hope is that eventually, the child doesn’t mind or may even like the taste of broccoli. I’m at the stage where I don’t need as much cheese, but it’s not no cheese. The positive messaging is taking over the negative programming that has controlled my reactions for most of my life, and it’s showing up in my relationship with my family and myself.

My therapist noticed the change and complimented my progress. So has my wife.

Maybe I’ll try to take the compliment.

Thank you. That’s true.