This season has always encouraged reflection for me—on what was, what is, and what’s slowly beginning to take shape. And this year, I’ve felt even more aware of how gratitude and acceptance work together like two hands steadying the same weight.
Recently, I lost my beloved dog, McKinley. She was my steadfast companion, my observer, my office shadow… and a source of joy in ways only pets can truly provide. Her passing was painful, of course, but intertwined with that sadness was something surprisingly steady: gratitude.
Gratitude for her soft head on my knee while I wrote.
Gratitude for her presence during some of the most difficult months of my life.
Gratitude that she waited for me to return from traveling to say goodbye.
Acceptance, I’ve learned, is not a surrender. It’s a softening—a willingness to live alongside reality rather than fight it. And in that softening, gratitude becomes the light that fills the cracks.
As the holidays approach, I find myself practicing gratitude with more intention. For friends who reach out. For family who stand steady. For readers who share their own journeys with me. For the simple, everyday mercies that would be easy to overlook if I didn’t pause long enough to feel them.
Gratitude does not erase grief.
But it does allow joy to return—quietly, faithfully, in its own time.
And acceptance makes space for that joy.
As we step into the holiday season, my hope for you is this:
May gratitude show you what still glows in your life.
May acceptance give you room to breathe.
And may both carry you gently into whatever comes next.