It’s funny to leave the sun and ocean breezes of Vancouver to return to rainy Calgary. Funny — not in the ‘haw haw’ way but rather in the — but it doesn’t rain for days on end in Calgary. That’s Vancouver weather!

And it is, really green in a city that is generally more golden hues and dusty.

On Saturday night in Vancouver, I joined a girlfriend at her favourite neighbourhood restaurant for a late night glass of wine and a visit. At one point, she was talking with some friends at the bar and I chatted with a man seated beside me. Amid was born in Tunisia but moved to France as a child when Tunisia declared its independence from French rule. He works for a large engineering firm and has been living in Vancouver for the past 6 months. “I love Canada,” he said. “It’s so calm and welcoming.”

We chatted about life and at one point, after I’d mentioned being in Vancouver to visit with my daughter and her boyfriend, he said, “You sound like you have a great relationship with your daughters.”

“I have the relationship I’ve always dreamt of,” I told him. “I feel very blessed.”

“It’s one thing to know you’re blessed,” he said. “It’s even more important to feel it.”

I’ve thought about what he said a few times over the weekend as I’ve wandered the streets and Granville Island Market and Gastown and Yaletown with Alexis or sat over dinner with everyone together.

I know I’m blessed and I feel the grace of my many blessings every moment. My heart swells with gratitude.

When I returned last night my youngest daughter picked me up at the airport and we shared a late night bite at a new Calgary eaterie. “We might have to make this our new place,” she said as we dug into a cheese fondue and talked about highlights of our weekends. We have a standing date every two weeks. Dinner and a glass of wine and an evening of sharing what’s happening in our lives.

I am truly blessed.

I have two amazing daughters who enjoy taking time out of their busy lives to sit and chat and share. It is the relationship I always dreamt of having with my mother but, because of the dynamics of our lives, was never able to create. As I once told Alexis many years ago who, after crawling into bed with me late one night after returning from a date with her boyfriend where they’d had a fight (it was actually early one morning), apologized for waking me up. “Don’t apologize,” I told her at 3 am when she had cried herself out and was going off to her own bed. “I’ve always yearned for this kind of relationship with my mother and now, I don’t have to yearn for it any more. I’ve got it with you.”

The rain is falling this morning. The world outside my window is green and soggy, but in my heart, it doesn’t matter what the weather does outside, inside my heart expands in the knowing of my many blessings and feeling the joy of that comes with basking in the Love that rains down upon me with every breath I take.

I am blessed and grateful for the grace of my many blessings.