“A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting for him. Only the vine sustained him.
Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!” – Unknown[i]
“For [ingratitude] is a failure to recognize the good things, the graces, and the gifts received. As such, it is the cause, beginning, and origin of all evils and sins. On the contrary, recognition and gratitude for the good things and gifts received is greatly loved and esteemed both in heaven and on earth.” – St. Ignatius of Loyola[ii]
“What is love?
Gratitude.” – Rumi[iii]
My spouse, Megan, and I have two daughters. The younger, Ciercina, is two, and I can count on my hands the number of times she has slept through the night since birth. Naturally, we have been concerned for her health, not to mention her sister’s and ours, given how loud she sings at two in the morning.
After many conversations with her pediatrician, we applied for a sleep study with some specialists. They said they had routinely seen symptoms like hers and felt confident they could help us find a solution. At the end of the process, the doctors shrugged their shoulders and told us to try the behavioral department.
We set up the observation with behavioral specialists and waited. They were optimistic. After the first observation round, they told us their first instinct was that she was on the autism spectrum. Megan and I felt crushed.
We spent days reflecting on the challenges our daughter would have to face. We read about the adjustments our family life would need to make to provide the best possible space for our daughter to learn to meet those challenges. We reflected and re-reflected on what felt like a bizarre diagnosis to us and grieved what our family would need to let go of.
Then, the four of us went on vacation.
On the road trip home, a tick bit Ciercina, and by the time we found it, it was embedded in the very center of her chest. There was a bullseye pattern of red around the tick, indicating a potential Lyme infection. When we tried to remove the tick, its head came off. We were scared and again wondering what this could mean for our daughter’s life. I prepared a salve to draw the rest of the tick out, and we high-tailed it home hoping to get her to a doctor quickly.
Our usual pediatrician couldn’t see Ciercina immediately, so we took her to the next town to see someone new. The doctor confirmed Lyme infection but assured us it was early and antibiotics would wipe it out before any lasting harm could be done. Then, during the conversation, Megan mentioned Ciercina’s sleep patterns and the specialists’ theory.
The doctor looked at Megan quizzically and said, “I would never in my life think this girl is on the autism spectrum. Let me see her tonsils.” The doctor looked, nodded, and said, “Yeah. I see this a lot. Her tonsils are huge. When she falls asleep, the uvula rests on them in a way that makes it hard to breathe, and she wakes up. I’ll write you a referral to an ENT to confirm, but you probably just need to remove her tonsils.” The next breath Megan and I took was long and deep.
We still don’t know where these elements will land for Ciercina or our family, but I felt profoundly grateful. Megan and I breathed thanks for the grief because of the love we discovered in releasing some of our hopes in exchange for the truly valuable. We laughed gratitude for the diseased tick, through whom dimensions of life became possibilities for Ciercina again.
In spiritual direction, much of what the director and directee partner with the Divine in is cultivating awareness of the Divine in all things. One of the guiding forces we look for in moving toward the Divine is where the invitation to gratitude is, in grief, as much as in celebration. This growing familiarity with gratitude for the gift of life becomes an inner sign, pointing us toward that which is worthy of the giving of our own lives. It is in that journey that we prepare a home in our hearts for joy and find an eternal quality to life.
[i] Buddha, Glenn Wallis Ph.D., The Dhammapada: Verses on the Way (New York, NY: Modern Library, 2007).
[ii] Timothy Gallagher OMV, The Examen Prayer: Ignatian Wisdom for Our Lives Today (New York, NY: The Crossroads, 2006), Loc. 763, Kindle.
[iii] Rumi, Coleman Barks, Rumi: The Big Red Book The Great Masterpiece Celebrating Mystical Love and Friendship (San Francisco, CA: HarperOne, 2011), 407, Kindle.