5 Things Patch Readers Are Grateful For: 30 Days Of Gratitude

ACROSS AMERICA — A year ago to the day Wednesday, Ann Giles Perry, a Trussville, Alabama, Patch reader, suffered a major heart attack.

She survived triple bypass surgery. Today, she is grateful for time.

“I am most grateful that God has allowed me to recover and have more time to enjoy my 14 grandchildren,” she said in a Facebook post asking Patch readers to talk about what living with gratitude means to them.

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Her story and others like it will be shared all month in “30 Days Of Gratitude,” a Patch series exploring the intentionality of gratitude and featuring bits of wisdom from Patch readers. Come back to Across America Patch every day through November and read more about gratitude.

Living with gratitude goes beyond merely being thankful. It doesn’t mean pretending bad things don’t happen, but rather savoring the goodness, according to experts on the topic, including Robert Emmons, a Unviersity of California, Davis, psychology professor who is known as the "father of gratitude."

In short, living with gratitude is “an affirmation of goodness” and a recognition of the good in the world as the source of our individual gifts, benefits and blessings. Gratitude is not singularly focused, Emmons said in a YouTube video for the Greater Good Science Center, but rather recognizes that the sources of goodness are other people who “gave us many gifts, big and small, to help us achieve the goodness in our lives.”

Below are four other Patch readers who practice gratitude:

“In August, I received a kidney transplant and my husband was my donor,” Helene Winslow Boldt, a Suffield, Connecticut, Patch reader. “So thankful and blessed.”

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Grayslake, Illinois, Patch reader Lisa Brown is grateful for the opportunity to serve people so they can live better lives.

“To finally have my dream of my own wellness center and will be able to help more people — I am grateful for that every day,” she wrote.

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Round Rock, Texas, Patch reader Hazne Eguino recognizes, as gratitude expert Emmons has so frequently pointed, that the source of the goodness in her life is another.

“I’m grateful for her wisdom, strength, fortitude, and heart as these attributes are only a small part of what makes her the most amazing woman I am blessed to call mom,” Eguino wrote.

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Novato, California, Patch reader Mireya Zamora Nelson wrote with gratitude for the outside sources of good in her life.

“I’m beyond grateful for this — our neighbors, who have become our family,” Nelson wrote. “Life has its ups and downs but with a family like ours we can get through anything. Even COVID.”

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Catch up with this series:

• Opera Singer ‘Died’ But Lives On As Pianist: 30 Days Of Gratitude
• Tell Someone You’re Grateful For Them: 30 Days Of Gratitude

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