Gratitude and Struggles

Sometimes we think of gratitude as a thank you or as a offer of thanks for something.
      It’s being grateful and thankful and interpretive and forever indebted.
      Some people experience  and give gratitude more than others.

Wikipedia defines Gratitude as:
“An emotion that occurs after people receive help, depending on how they interpret the situation. Specifically, gratitude is experienced if people perceive the help they receive as (a) valuable to them, (b) costly to their benefactor, and (c) given by the benefactor with benevolent intentions (rather than ulterior motives)”.

Of the many emotions such as affection, compassion, euphoria, hope, inspiration, kindness, love, sadness, optimism, and patience ….. they force us to delve into the past, present and future at both opportune and inopportune times in our lives.
Lately I have been having a problem finding my gratitude and gratefulness in my everyday life and in my future.  I know I should be grateful for my health, my love in my life and so many of the other things in my daily life that I take for granted. Lately it has been hard. I feel lost and frustrated and mad and angry at what life has offered up to me and what it has left me with since Di passed.  I don't have the "connections" with Di that kept me keeping on anymore and I've displaced my feelings into a small box that I just want to throw into the ocean and let the tide carry away.

Di's birthday is coming up very soon and it is taking everything in my soul and my being to not turn my back on the future and focus on the past; the past I had shared with Di and the memories that we made; those are what I am grateful for.  Struggling with not having her here to hug and bring a birthday card to is taking a toll on my feelings and my actions.  I miss her and I will miss her everyday and every year and every holiday and every moment that I turn my head and think a thought in my mind...that I so want to share with her.  Not anymore, never again will I be able to laugh with her or hear her laugh that tickled my inner soul.  

So, I'm looking for ways to bring the gratitude back into my life....
I found this awesome article Ways To Find Gratitute

Peace.
Love.
Cath