Gratitude Flavored Sweet

nharkreader
Mar 19, 2021
3 min read

Updated: Apr 5, 2021

Gratitude awakens us to life.

When we quake and rumble and overflow with gratitude, we are surprised.

We are surprised that there is always light cracking through the darkness and a glimmer of joy amidst sorrow and goodness and grace and mercy.

And in our gratitude we experience depth.

As you are filled up, cracked open, hallowed, molded, filled, and poured out, you hold tightly to the Light and give thanks for all that is. A cycle of gratitude filled with surprise and tainted with thanks.

Gratitude trickles like honey and fills our life with sweetness; a sweetness that satisfies.

A life of gratitude abounds in joy because it honors the One who Satisfies; the Giver of Good Gifts; the Breath of Life.

Here is my rumble, my quake, my overflow of gratitude flavored sweet.

· Children are still children. Their eyes flood over spilt food, scuffed knees, head bumps, hurtful words, being asked to mop the house, and days they don’t feel like attending school.

· Each person is celebrated equally in love and admiration on their birthday. In Luganda, the birthday person is called the bride and each person appreciates and encourages the bride on their day.

· Cakes that are bought from the gas station tasting like sweet bread covered in sugar frosting.

· A Ugandan phone number with 13 numbers.

· A child’s affinity for peanut butter, or as Namata says, peanut buddy.

· Nine little mouths expectant of food at first glimpse.

· The "they’re just like that" Ugandan roads with unavoidable trenches.

· The sweetness and excitement in the small voices greeting kulikayo maama (welcome home).

· An invitation to the Buganda tribe with a new name – Mirembe (Peace).

· Better-than-movie-theater popcorn picked from the garden.

· Three birthday parties in one week.

· Sledding on grass with a jerrycan cut in half and a piece of old electrical cord as the rope.

· A fleeting moment of air tasting like dry desert and home.

· A deep love and limitless excitement for headstands.

· The last words, “It will be quick! We will be home by morning.”

. . . 8 hours later and an 11:00 pm arrival time.

· The first muzungu birthday party for many; a cake with my name on it; and pineapple, watermelon, popcorn, soda, candles and a birthday crown to celebrate.

· New shoes fashioned from old car tires.

· A lizard that runs the walls of my bedroom.

· The purest delight in a cake baked over coals and homemade chocolate frosting to top.

· Our littlest boy calling me boyfriend and adding names to his name:

Yahaya Junior Punching Dogboy

· The first day of school jitters.

· The joy of a child first standing and a song sung in celebration:

Ayimiride yeka. Yeka yeka yeka,

Ayimiride yeka. Yeka yeka yeka.

· Three friends on a boda boda.

· A freshly cleaned house dirtied in minutes (the result of nine children).

· A young village girl named Juliet who wants to keep coming to school because addition was taught with oranges and apples.

· A slick metal slide and mukwano gwange (my friend).

· A quick, intentional, and instantaneous forgiveness.

· The longing for tastes of the known and familiar:

The familiar scent of a hazy lake in Nebraska on a summer day.

The uniformity and friendly taste of morning coffee.

The breeze of desert wind.

The rushing of mighty rivers.

The fleeting scent of sagebrush.

· The sweetness of adding a new home with a new known and new familiar:

The persistent giggles of nine children, of 18 hands to hold, of nine small bodies to hug tightly, and the sincerity of the ones who call you maama.