Blog

The morning was quiet. Dew clung to the grass like tiny pearls, and the sun stretched lazily across the village rooftops. Mira walked beside her grandfather, a fresh fig nestled in her palm—its skin still warm from the neighbor’s oven.

“Grandfather,” she said, rolling the fig between her fingers, “yesterday I was afraid the traveler would go hungry. But now… my chest feels like sunlight lives there.”

He knelt, pressing his palm to the earth beneath the fig tree. “That light has a name, Mira. We call it gratitude—but it’s not what you think.”

With his knife, he carved three words into the fig’s flesh:

Remember

Honor

Multiply

The Lesson of the Broken Jar

“Long ago,” he began, “a woman carried water in a clay jar. One day, it shattered. ‘Useless!’ cried her children, but she gathered the pieces. One became a spoon to feed the sick. Another, a blade to harvest wheat. The sharpest shard carved toys from wood. When neighbors asked her secret, she said: ‘Gratitude isn’t for perfect things—it’s for finding the gift in what’s broken.'”

He handed Mira the fig. “Bite where I cut.”

Sweetness flooded her tongue—but deeper, near the seeds, a faint bitterness lingered.

“Life is like this fruit,” he said. “Gratitude means tasting all of it—the sweet and the bitter—and saying: ‘This too nourished me.'”

They walked to the well, where villagers had left tokens: a rusted fishing hook, a faded ribbon, a single almond shell. Grandfather dropped the fig seeds into the bucket.

“Every kindness is a seed thrown deep into this well,” he said. “Gratitude is drawing them back up—not just to remember, but to plant.”

Mira peered into the dark water. For a moment, she saw flashes—the traveler’s hands offering seeds, the baker’s flushed cheeks as he shoveled earth, her own small voice saying “Hunger has no borders.”

“The well is a mirror,” she realized.

“Yes,” Grandfather said. “Gratitude shows us who we really are—not alone, but part of a great chain of giving. To be grateful is to see your life as a gift held by many hands.”

As they walked home, Mira squeezed Grandfather’s hand. “When I looked in the well… I felt the traveler’s hunger. Like it was mine.”

He stopped abruptly. “Ah! Then gratitude has done its greatest magic—it’s opened the door to empathy.”

“What is empathy, anyway?” she asked.

“It’s the moment gratitude stretches beyond yourself,” he said, “when another’s joy or pain becomes a thread in your own soul. But that…” He kissed her forehead, “…is tomorrow’s story.”