I’ve wanted years to live a grateful life and I am finally close to it; this morning, I was there.

I was so grateful to be living where I live, with the partner I love, these animals all around us, we have the opportunity to support life as well as honor death.

Maria and I go up early to close off the Pole Barn to be safe for Robin and Laurie to spend the day. The sheep and donkeys are out in the pasture, sunning themselves and grazing on the first stubble.

We went to our hastily improved lambing pen to let Robin and Laurie out, past the big cow stall and out into the Pole Barn itself, now sealed off.

It’s a warm and sunny day, Robin’s first time in the sun, and he was quite happy, hopping around like a rabbit. Maria melts when she watches him.

We sat out with them for a while and basked in the warmth of our lives. We are lucky to be here together. I felt lucky to see this love and life.

When I look back at my life and all that has happened to me, to all of us, it’s easy to divide our lives into good things to be grateful for and bad things to forget.

But when I divide my life into “good” and “bad,” it’s difficult to move freely into the future and a sense of gratitude. I’ve learned never to speak poorly of the bad, it is just as much a part of my life as the sun on the lamb this morning.

The kind of spiritual gratitude I seek embraces all of the past; it makes no distinctions between good and bad; it accepts the good and the painful and sorrowful.

Gratitude is about the whole of life, not just the sunny part.

For me to be whole, I have to take everything in my life; I can’t just edit out the bad. But sitting out in the Pole Barn watching the lamb we helped bring into the world, all my guilt and shame becomes something happy and uplifting because it brought me to a deeper recognition of empathy, a stronger sense of being guided, and a commitment to a life of service and meaning.