Grateful

My first response to this prompt in the Bloganuary challenge was “What, only 5, then I better make them big ones”. Here goes.

Not how long, but how well you have lived is the main thing

– Seneca

Life in all its glory and its continuing presence would be my first one. I am well past my “Use By” date as set by my teenage self so every moment is a bonus and a blessing and I intend to recognise each moment as such. My teenage self was a little way off with his estimate of not lasting past 30 years. A little way off? I am reminded of the Get Smart tag line “Missed by that much”.

Grandparents, like heroes, are as necessary to a child’s growth as vitamins

– Joyce Allston

My grandparents and their influence on my life in so many ways is a particularly heart felt gratitude. Their action in taking on my parenting when my parents wouldn’t or couldn’t was the second miracle of my life, the first being born at all of course, a universal human miracle. I expressed my gratitude to them in my earlier post “Ho Hum“. Later their hard work continued to my benefit after their passing as I inherited the family home in Maldon which set me up for retirement.

A dog will teach you unconditional love. If you can have that in your life, things won’t be too bad

– Robert Wagner

I am still mourning the loss of our two wuppies, Rosie and Daisy, who passed away last year within a few months of each other but I am now filled with immense gratitude for the joy they brought to my life for 14 years. You can not buy that sort of love and devotion, it is a priceless gift. I hope that I have honoured their memories with the posts I have made about them on this blog over the years.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

― Arthur C. Clarke, Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry Into the Limits of the Possible

I suspect the word technology triggers bad reactions in many people but to me it has been my life and I am grateful for all the opportunities that advancements in technology have given me. Not to mention the entertainment and communications options that technology provides us today which would have seemed like the stuff of fantasy when I was a child. Technology gave me my first job as a night shift switchboard operator in the local telephone exchange when I was still at school. I found this article which describes the nature of this job, look for the paragraph beginning “Back at the exchange” for the operating process I was responsible for. From that start my career followed the technology & communications path with a couple of short side trips into accounting and office work.

Stay young at heart, kind in spirit, and enjoy retirement living

– Danielle Duckery

Now happily enjoying retirement I find myself grateful for those politicians from years ago who fought for, and won, the establishment of an age pension which has allowed me to stop working and start living. I can only imagine the opposition these long ago politicians must have faced in getting this done. Thank you.