The Learning Curve of Gratitude

I believe in what I learned at the grocery store.

Eight weeks ago I was released from the hospital after suffering a pulmonary embolism. I had just finished a tour and a week after returning home, severe chest pain and terrible breathlessness landed me in the ER. A scan revealed blood clots in my lungs.

Everyone told me how lucky I was. A pulmonary embolism can take your life in an instant. I was familiar enough with the medical term, but not familiar with the pain, the fear and the depression that followed.

Everything I had been looking forward to came to a screeching halt. I had to cancel my upcoming tour. I had to let my musicians and crewmembers go. The record company, the booking agency: I felt that I had let everyone down.

But there was nothing to do but get out of the hospital, go home and get well.

I tried hard to see my unexpected time off as a gift, but I would open a novel and couldn’t concentrate. I would turn on the radio, then shut if off. Familiar clouds gathered above my head, and I couldn’t make them go away with a pill or a movie or a walk. This unexpected time was becoming a curse, filling me with anxiety, fear and self-loathing. All of the ingredients of the darkness that is depression.

Sometimes, it’s the smile of a stranger that helps. Sometimes it’s a phone call from a long absent friend, checking on you. I found my lifeline at the grocery store.

One morning, the young man who rang up my groceries and asked me if I wanted paper or plastic also told me to enjoy the rest of my day. I looked at him and I knew he meant it. It stopped me in my tracks. I went out and I sat in my car and cried.

What I want, more than ever, is to appreciate that I have this day, and tomorrow and hopefully days beyond that. I am experiencing the learning curve of gratitude.

I don’t want to say “have a nice day” like a robot. I don’t want to get mad at the elderly driver in front of me. I don’t want to go crazy when my Internet access is messed up. I don’t want to be jealous of someone else’s success. You could say that this litany of sins indicates that I don’t want to be human. The learning curve of gratitude, however, is showing me exactly how human I am.

I don’t know if my doctors will ever be able to give me the precise reason why I had a life-threatening illness. I do know that the young man in the grocery store reminded me that every day is all there is, and that is my belief.

Tonight I will cook dinner, tell my husband how much I love him, curl up with the dogs, watch the sun go down over the mountains and climb into bed. I will think about how uncomplicated it all is. I will wonder at how it took me my entire life to appreciate just one day.

Mary Chapin Carpenter is a five-time Grammy Award winning singer-songwriter. She has produced 11 albums in her 20-year career, including “The Calling," released in 2007. Carpenter and her husband live near Charlottesville, Va