Gratitude

In the NYTimes today, I read that Meryl Streep will be honored this year by the John F. Kennedy Center. I loved her comments on learning of the recognition.

“I am deeply honored by this news and wish my mother and father were alive to hear it . . . All that education, allowance, tuition, voice lessons, summer jobs, scholarship application and loving care and discipline—all that they gave me, bore fruit in a way they never dreamed. I am so grateful.”

What a beautiful thought, a wonderful, loving response.

Meryl Streep and I are about the same age. I like to think we have something in common: We both had parents who loved and cherished us and supported our potentialities.

When I was young, I felt I lived a charmed life. Only good things, it seemed, happened to me and my family. I lived in a bubble and tragedy was outside it. When I got older and bad things started happening me to me—parents dying, my younger brother dead from cancer, widowhood—I realized more than ever how hard my parents worked to give me the gift of a happy childhood. I’m thankful for that illusion and for as long as it lasted. It’s the source of my courage, the root of my confidence. It’s what enables to still feel hopeful that I can live my life with grace and meaning. I am so grateful.