A woman made a comment that instantly got my attention. She said that a friend had challenged her to find a hundred good things about her ex husband. 

 

Not a simple ask when things went badly. 

 

Yet the suggestion niggled at her. She didn't come up with the full count but it did soften her.

 

There are areas in my life that could improve from some treasure hunting. To believe that blessings exist at all is to invite curiosity. 

 

Take my mother losing everything in a flood. Well, it was the occasion for her moving in with us, which was a sweet finale to her time on earth. In the interim between being rudely ousted from her soggy condo and the completion of her apartment built on our house she lived in a different complex. She made a few friends there, and was safe. That's three. 

 

I could revisit Benjamin's hospitalizations. There were caring staff, and it gave our family a chance to exhale. All of us have the memory seared in our brains, which contributes to our gratitude for only mildly rocky interactions. We met our deductible for that year, so there's that. It helped me process long buried memories of my own mother being hospitalized against her will, and boosted retroactive empathy for my father to have to make that decision. When he was my age, it turns out, and without a partnership like I had. 

 

I have a running list of goodness that I keep on my phone. I add to it daily, and enjoy looking back over the abundance of benevolence. While I am not sure I could construct an exhaustive record of benefits born of a single painful event, I could surely uncover many from circumstances disguised as dirt. Which sounds a lot like gardening.