Whenever I have had wonderful news in the past, I have reached out to others to spread the news. It might be my husband or my mother, but I have reached for the phone to tell them whatever the news has been. But there has been something I have done first of all, quietly and to myself. I have said a thank you.
Whenever I have been successful in job interviews, I have always contacted either my husband or my mum and told them in excitement that I have got the job. The elation has been huge and I can feel the laughter, sometimes the sheer relief, and the undiluted happiness at having been successful. I have never applied for jobs that I haven’t wanted and I haven’t used the process to get a better deal with my then current employer. I don’t play those games, so for me to have applied for the job I will have wanted it. I could see myself doing it, I had ideas for the things I was going to do, and let’s face it I was looking forward to the salary uplift. Yes, that giddy excitement at doing something new was the first thing I wanted to express to those closest to me. And they usually shared in my joy. I remember for one job, I had broken my ankle not long before the final interview so had had to hobble in on crutches having been driven there by my mother. I was the last interviewee and recall hobbling back out after, struggling to get into my mother’s car and feeling wiped out by the whole experience, reliving the interview in my head when my phone rang. I was offered the job there and then, and it was wonderful to have my mum by my side as I was given the great news. It made me forget my broken ankle and how sore it all was for a moment! I thanked the HR person who had informed me of my success, while sending a thank you from my heart to the universe that I had been successful.
Another time I had wonderful news was when I was told that my cancer had not spread and so my outlook was very good after treatment. I had been living under a black cloud of a cancer diagnosis for a number of weeks, and I remember just bursting into tears and thanking the specialist profusely. He laughed and said how I had been so stoic when told I had cancer but was crying when told it hadn’t spread. They were the happiest of tears because I finally felt as though I had some measure of control again. We knew what we were dealing with, and didn’t have to worry about rogue cancer cells circulating in my body. My mum was next to me then as well – as I type this I have tears in my eyes – and I remember her gasp of pure relief at the news. She cried as we sat having coffee after, thanking me over and over again. I don’t know why she thanked me, I hadn’t done anything, but her gratitude in that moment that it wasn’t an even worse situation than we were already dealing with was immense. Inside, I was thanking my late grandmother for coming to me in a dream and telling me how to cope with fact of having cancer – she told me to imagine the X-Ray and imagine having a gun in my hand to shoot the cancer. She had died just over a decade before from pancreatic cancer. I am sure that dream helped me in so many ways.
When we found out I was pregnant with our son was a bittersweet moment. We’d had a miscarriage six months earlier, so as happy as we were about the pregnancy there was also nervousness. We’d been so excited before, dare we be excited again? It was a nerve-wracking eight weeks (I was about four weeks when we found out), and I didn’t allow myself to get too attached just in case. I kept telling myself that what would be, would be so I wouldn’t be so upset again. It was a more muted telling of prospective grandparents than the time before, and their reaction was also slightly muted. But all of that changed after the 12 week scan when it was confirmed all was well. We got lots of prints of the scan and shared them with the prospective grandparents, and the elation we felt was immense. I called my mum and she was so pleased, so happy that all was well. I remember smiling hugely as we left the hospital, all that fear and nervousness wiped away in an instant, the excitement bubbling up and mixing with the gratitude that all was well this time. Now, we could tell everyone else including friends and wider family members and I felt so overwhelmingly happy and grateful that I was being given this opportunity. I was delighted to announce at 20 weeks that we were expecting a girl…and laughed when our son was born! I was just so incredibly grateful that I had a beautiful and healthy baby, though I had known in the deepest recesses of my mind that I was having a boy. There had been this nagging voice for the final 20 weeks which became insistent the closer I got to his birth. I hadn’t told anyone about it, so I think I was the least surprised person when our son was born. I was just beyond delighted he was healthy, so telling everyone that wonderful news was one of the happiest moments I can remember in my life. The joy of a new birth always infuses everyone, and to be combined with a little shocker like that made it all the sweeter. Again, the first person I called was my mum. I had some complications after the birth so it wasn’t until two hours after he was born that I was able to tell her. When I told her she was a he, she just laughed. I think she was too happy at finally being a grandmother to care.
I have been blessed with times when I have had wonderful news that I have received and been able to share. Even in the darkest of times, receiving good news is always an amazing experience, and being able to share it even sweeter. This title did, though, make me think – what would be the greatest, most amazingly fantastic news I could receive right in this moment? And what would I do? Well, I guess it would be that my book had become a best-seller on Amazon and that there were many, many pre-orders for my second. That I had earned a staggering amount of money overnight, but most importantly that people were enjoying my writing. What would I do? Well, the first thing I would do would be to express my immense gratitude to everyone who had purchased and read my book. Without them, this amazing news would not be possible. I would then tell my husband, son and parents that their faith in me was well-placed and that I was tremendously grateful for their support. I would set about using the money to clear my debts and take my supporters out for a lovely, celebratory meal. With some regret, I would resign from my cleaning job so I could focus on the thing I most want to do – write and help people positively change their lives on my nascent YouTube channel. I would invest in some book marketing support and PR to keep this streak going, focus on growing my YouTube channel and continue writing my third book in the trilogy so I could give my readers the conclusion to the story. And get a website fully established. I would, in short, be living my best life.
But the very first thing I would do would be to give thanks for this amazing luck. To express my gratitude. Because, ultimately, being grateful for every wonderful thing that happens to us is a sure-fired way of ensuring we get more of the same. We are telling our minds to see the opportunities out there, to work on the basis that there are endless possibilities for us always and to direct it to see them so we might take advantage of them. Then, it is about spreading the news far and wide to encourage others to celebrate with you. I do love receiving great, amazingly fantastic news and so I am grateful for this writing prompt. Because it has brought a smile to my face in recounting some memories and thinking about what would be the best news I could receive right here and now. And sharing it with you. Thank you.
Louisa Simpson 