Abundant Living: Lessons from Grandmom Rita

Finding Richness and Abundant Living in Life's Simple Pleasures

I was fortunate to grow up with a grandmother who loved me unconditionally and showed me a model of how to enjoy life no matter what. She was the youngest of 13 children (imagine!) and the firstborn in the US. Her family emigrated from a small town on the Amalfi Coast called Scala to the Grays Ferry neighborhood of Philadelphia before she was born.

A photograph of Grandmom Rita.

Her early life as the daughter of immigrants was no doubt hard. She married my grandfather when she was just 20 and went on to raise my dad and his four siblings while my grandfather worked. She found herself widowed in her fifties. I met this version of her. A woman who had a fierce independence and who made every day a celebration.

" I think we can still live abundantly by rooting ourselves in gratitude for all that we have."

Despite all the challenges her life had given her, she lived daily with abundance. She recognized the important things in life and found luxury in what she was most grateful for - her family, her home, the traditions she upheld, her Italian heritage, a good cup of coffee, and chocolate. Society today can make taking pleasure in the little things seems trivial. Social media helps to perpetuate a culture of scarcity mentality where we are consistently seeing what we don't have (and maybe want) leading to negative thoughts and even a spike in depression.

I think we can still live abundantly by rooting ourselves in gratitude for all that we have. When scarcity mentality creeps in, as it so often does, I try to pull myself up and see all the things that truly make life special and live abundantly like Grandmom Rita.