Gina Hamadey - I Want to Thank You: How a Year of Gratitude Can Bring Joy and Meaning in a Disconnected World

PRAISE FOR I WANT TO THANK YOU

As a fan of both gratitude and year-long projects, I was hooked from the start. This book inspired me to write notes to everyone from coworkers to college friends, which helped me defy the gloomy apocalyptic mind-set that has overtaken so many of us.

A. J. Jacobs, author of Thanks a Thousand

Gina Hamadey has a way with words, with friends, with neighbors, with those tugging feelings we all have that maybe weve forgotten whats important. I Want to Thank You is a tonic for our times. It will cheer your day, guide you back to what matters most, and remind you of the power you have to make someone else feel specialmost especially the ones you love. Thank you for this lovely book.

Bruce Feiler, author of the New York Timesbestselling Life Is in the Transitions and The Secrets of Happy Families

Gina makes me want to slow down, to reconnect, and, most of all, to appreciate the life I have, in all of its challenges and complexities. Thank you, Gina, thank you.

Emma Straub, author of All Adults Here and owner of Books Are Magic

Gina Hamadey is a great storyteller. I love her references to finding ways to notice the little things and put down your phonesubjects near and dear to me.

Barbara Ann Kipfer, author of 14,000 Things to be Happy About

an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

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Copyright 2021 by Gina Hamadey

Illustrations by Kelly Lasserre

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Hamadey, Gina, author.

Title: I want to thank you: how a year of gratitude can bring joy and

meaning in a disconnected world / Gina Hamadey.

Description: New York: TarcherPerigee, 2021.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020023354 (print) | LCCN 2020023355 (ebook) | ISBN

9780593189627 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780593189634 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Gratitude.

Classification: LCC BF575.G68 B47 2021 (print) | LCC BF575.G68 (ebook) |

DDC 179/.9dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020023354

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020023355

Cover design: Nellys Liang

Cover lettering: Kelly Lasserre

Cover image: SD619 / iStock / Getty Images Plus

pid_prh_5.6.1_c0_r0

For Jake, Henry, and Charlie

INTRODUCTION

In the early spring of 2020, as a global pandemic shut down life as we knew it, I started noticing another infectious outbreak. All around me, people faced extreme isolation or claustrophobic togetherness; relentless tedium or crippling uncertainty; fear of losing their jobs, their homes, their loved onesand yet they responded with an outpouring of gratitude.

My friend who was living apart from her ER doctor husband was overcome with joy and gratitude for those who brought my husband dinner every night, put signs on our lawn and did nightly walk-bys to keep him company when he was alone. A college friend working at a hard-hit New Jersey hospital was thankful for every person who stays home, physically distances, and wears a mask, despite these things being boring, lonely, frustrating, uncomfortable, sweaty, itchy, a little gross, and generally awkward.

A teacher shared that she was grateful, simply, for the past. The uncertainty of the future, she said, makes me appreciate even more the experiences and memories Ive accumulated throughout my life.

Others reported being grateful for the chance to sit down to family dinner every night, to renew connections with friends, to put down the phone and pick up a badminton racket, to savor things they normally overlooked. I love what catches my sons eyes, said a former colleague who had begun taking daily walks with her young child. Today he discovered a cool tree that I have bicycled by many times without noticing the unique roots that are exposed above the ground.

I heard a lot of appreciation for nature. My sister felt a kinship with the trees outside her Brooklyn apartment, a neighbor treasured the spring blooms and the birds chirping and the evening golden hour, and a mentor delighted even in the pesky squirrels nibbling at her vegetable seedlings.

My mom, who was sheltering alone, said that although so far away from my children, grandchildren, and family, my gratitude and peace lies in the fact that you are all well and safe.

In the absence of a cure or a vaccine, I was reminded of one of the grandest lessons I learned from the year I spent writing 365 thank you notes: Gratitude is strong medicine. It helps us see whats there instead of pining for whats missing. It spurs empathy and compassion and is an antidote to self-centered whining. (Although a little whiningideally on the phone with an old friend, mezcal in handcan be necessary and therapeutic.)

As friends and family members were sharing their gratitude, I was finishing up this book, and certain passages took on new meaning. I no longer had to persuade people that it was important to maintain connections despite the distance between us. Pleasures I had taken for grantedtraveling, going to restaurants, throwing dinner partiesbecame impossible dreams. And thanking health-care workers, as I did for an entire month, became standard practice.

At our home in Brooklyn, the most heartening part of the day came at 7:00 p.m., when my neighbors stuck their heads out of windows and stepped onto balconies to clap and cheer and bang on pots to show their appreciation for the essential workers. Go, doctors! my two boys yelled. You can do itI know you can! It was a daily reminder of what I spent my Thank You Year learningthat gratitude is what we have to give. It is free, and yet it has worth. Saying thank you became more than a nice thing to do. It became essential.

And it remained essential even as widespread injustice boiled over into raging protests. In New York City, the seven oclock clapping continued even when there was an eight oclock curfew. Gratitude and anger were not incompatible. We could applaud the brave people in our community