Yesterday, I was driving my daughter to school. The traffic was unusually bad, and I could feel myself becoming irritated — which is actually fairly unlike me. Part of it was that I had a repairman coming sometime that morning. I didn’t know exactly when, but I knew I needed to get home.

At one point, we drove past a car accident. A woman was standing beside a car with the entire front smashed in. She was on the phone, looking understandably shaken. I noticed the number plate suggested it was probably a loan car.

And immediately, I felt that familiar thought: Well, my day isn’t so bad after all. The agitation eased a little. But not entirely.

And it made me wonder about something.

Why is it so hard for us to feel genuinely grateful for things that haven’t happened to us? That whole “at least…” kind of thinking.

At least it wasn’t worse.

At least you still have this.

I know those comments are usually said with kindness. I’ve probably said similar things myself at times. But when I’ve been on the receiving end of them, they’ve rarely brought me comfort.

If anything, they sometimes make me feel like I shouldn’t be upset at all. As though gratitude and pain can’t exist together.

But maybe gratitude works better when it’s grounded in what is, rather than what isn’t.

Yesterday, that wasn’t the accident I had avoided. It was the fact that I was sitting beside my daughter on a beautiful morning, talking together on the way to school.

And maybe that’s the kind of gratitude that settles more deeply.