I don't like the way you say thank you and I would like to give you ice cream

I do not like the way you thank me after I have shopped and chopped
diced.sliced. steamed, creamed, baked, boiled and toiled to prepare your meal.

tossed your salad with fresh veggies from the Farmers Market so carefully selected for you.

Fresh garlic,finely diced and hanging onto pieces of spinach....
...perfect

Artichoke hearts and divine , precious blue cheese crumbled into my favorite blue Chinese bowl.

Small organic potatoes- purple and gold tossed so gently with fine olive oil and sea salt

blah blah
candles lit
sweet music; that I know matters to you from times past, playing, as your fork bangs upon the
plate and you stare out the window and sometimes utter something about yourself at me
as your white napkin gets soiled

I ask if you would like a piece of German chocolate cake for dessert
"yes", you say
I serve it

I know you are an old man and your thoughts are all about yourself.
I know that your chair at the table will soon be empty.
The clanging of the fork will be silent.
I try to practice acceptance as I walk away from the table and wait for you to find your way back to the tv
so I can clean the kitchen and do it all again tomorrow.
I will
I will do it all again tomorrow

Still...I wish you could find a way you say "thank you" so I would add vanilla ice cream with your cake

From Elizabeth —

Oh, I hear you. This is so hard. It took me decades to deal with what my mother did, but my man has been so lavishly appreciative over all these 50+ years that I have good backup. One thing that has helped me: do it all, anyway, with joy — and do it for yourself. Do it for the act of giving, and for the connection that brings with the abundant multiverse, and the joy that brings to you.

Gratitude is something our culture twists and maims. It's instilled at Christmases and birthdays, and it pounds its fist and says: "Write a thank-you note!" Boy, did I have trouble with this. I didn't WANT the stuff, and I barely knew the givers, who were all friends of my dad, not "family." But I knew acknowledgement was expected, and I don't think that was a bad thing. It's that what I didn't remotely understand then is that what activates gratitude is the giving, not the thing given. It took me decades, until I had started growing a soul, to sense that.

So give the beautiful gift, again and again, to yourself, and to the magnificent web of life that enfolds you, and release the poor recipient.

Quote:

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Posted in reply to the post by Gemini Woman:

I do not like the way you thank me after I have shopped and chopped
diced.sliced. steamed, creamed, baked, boiled and toiled to prepare your meal.

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Thanks for the “inspiration” today, Gemini woman.
After reading your poem this morning, I composed this one about ingratitude:

Poverty Of The Soul

Poverty of the soul is what we see today,

In chronic dissatisfaction’s headlined display.

Living vicariously is really not an enlightened way,

Makes everything precarious in a fragile sort of way.

Where is that gratitude and respect for what I do or say,

When silence is all that returns to me in your empty grade.

Why give anymore of myself when amnesia rules your day,

A funny, vacant kind of love you give back, I really have to say.

No Gratitude, no Thanks, or no acknowledgement do I ever find,

In an empty bankrupted soul from a very selfish one-tracked mind.

And, your cunning recitations do make dysfunctional communications.

Like one great-big fatal mistake, I just give while you just take,

As if dead leaves are gathered at the end of a garden rake.

You collect them all and then throw them in the trash,

No memory is worthy of this ingrate counterfeit cash.

This impoverished soul becomes quite the thriller,

If one likes living with an indigent soul killer.

But I will forgive you again and just move along

to let you sing your old deprived victim’s song.



©2014 Tim Gega, Emotional Awareness & Literacy

- Suicide Prevention Since 1986 -