My Grandfather's Blessings: Stories of Strength, Refuge, and Belonging Symbols, Allegory and Motifs

My Grandfather's Blessings: Stories of Strength, Refuge, and Belonging Symbols, Allegory and Motifs

Blessings (A Motif) - “Receiving Your Blessings”

Remen elucidates, “We can bless others only when we feel blessed ourselves. Blessing life may be more about learning how to celebrate life than learning how to fix life. It may require an appreciation of life as it is and an acceptance of much in life that we cannot understand." Remen’s ideology of blessings underscores the essence of contentment. Being content promotes unqualified Joy in one’s life. A content person focuses on the existing blessings, instead of longing for other unachieved ambitions.

Love - “Receiving Your Blessings”

Remen recalls, “I had met Larry ten years before when he was first diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He was twenty nine…Larry and his wife had fought back. Deeply in love, they had supported each other through a year of brutal chemotherapy.” Love is contributory in the recuperation of the individuals weathering deadly ailments such as cancer. Carol’s (Larry’s wife) support is the ultimate blessing which empowers him to courageously confront the cancer.

Death-“The Trajectory”

Remen observes, “I do remember having a sense of his (Grandfather) closeness that faded only after many years. Certainly I talked with him for a long time much the same way as we both used to talk with God. As Mitch Albom writes in Tuesdays with Morrie, “Death is the end of a lifetime, not the end of a relationship.” Physical death does not impact Remen’s spiritual bond with her grandfather. Their connection is mystical; hence, above death.

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