{"id":208,"date":"2010-08-09T10:19:17","date_gmt":"2010-08-09T10:19:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.katrinakenison.com\/2010\/08\/09\/one-good-thing\/"},"modified":"2010-08-09T10:19:17","modified_gmt":"2010-08-09T10:19:17","slug":"one-good-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/one-good-thing\/","title":{"rendered":"One good thing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/span><\/span>A young father lay dying.\u00a0 Our sons, then in third grade together, had been playmates since kindergarten.\u00a0 When word came that Richard was ill, I\u2019d brought soup to the door, then lemon cake.\u00a0 Such small gestures; just a way to say, \u201cI am thinking of you.\u201d\u00a0 One day I stayed on to chat with Richard in the quiet house, and later his wife Jane called and asked if perhaps I could come again.<\/p>\n

So it was that in the midst of my busy life with two small children, I was invited to pause, and to draw close to death.<\/p>\n

Richard\u2019s decline was slow; there was time for the work of letting go.\u00a0 As the months went by, he moved from the sofa in the sun-drenched living room to the darkened bedroom upstairs; from recounting anecdotes of his childhood into a tape recorder for his boys to hear when he was gone, to listening while my friend Lisa and\u00a0 I took turns reading the “Tibetan Book of of Living and Dying” aloud at this bedside; from festive meals shared at the table to sips of coffee and bites of cake.\u00a0 There was nothing to do, day after day,\u00a0 but show up with an open heart.\u00a0 The lesson, I came to see, was all about being there — allowing, listening, learning to be less afraid of what might come and more accepting of things as they were.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow are you doing?\u201d I asked him once as the end drew near, not sure at all how to ask my real question:\u00a0 \u201cHow can anyone suffer so, and yet go on?\u201d<\/p>\n

I think often, still, of Richard\u2019s answer:\u00a0 \u201cAs long as there is one good thing in every day,\u201d he said, \u201clife is worth living.\u201d<\/p>\n

One good thing.<\/p>\n

Most days, I lose count by breakfast time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A young father lay dying.\u00a0 Our sons, then in third grade together, had been playmates since kindergarten.\u00a0 When word came that Richard was ill, I\u2019d brought soup to the door, then lemon cake.\u00a0 Such small gestures; just a way to say, \u201cI am thinking of you.\u201d\u00a0 One day I stayed on to chat with Richard […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,14],"tags":[198,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-208","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-gratitude","8":"category-soul-work","9":"tag-gratitude-2","10":"tag-letting-go-2","11":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/600x600.png?fit=600%2C600","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}