Journal Entry 10.21.23

Gratitude is closely linked to grief. Without gratitude there is nothing left to mourn. A person who does not appreciate another person or an experience will not feel its absence or loss. I know that the depth of my grief stems from the depth of my gratitude.

Yesterday we were walking in the fields of Chumling. A woman was working in her fields. She got our attention and gesticulated at us, miming an action we could not understand. Our friend called out to her. She had cut her hand while working in the fields with her knife and she wondered if we had any medicine or gauze. I told her we had some back at the tea house and she could come get it from us. When we returned to our tea house, our friend helped me sort out our first aid kit to find the right items for her wound. He took the wipes, antibiotics, butterfly stitches, gauze pads, band-aids and tape back up to her in the field. There is a clinic in the village, but it was not open today.

The next morning she had come by the tea house with a bag of toasted corn for us as a gesture of thank you. As we left the village she called out thanks from another field and in reply we shouted in return, “Worchey!” Thank you. Our gratitude was circular.