I’m not a proponent of fostering a sense of gratitude as a point of comparison.

I don’t think it is a very uplifting response to consider yourself fortunate and grateful because others have things so much worse than you. It makes no sense to me that you should be happy because you are able to eat ramen for dinner when refugees in Yemen have no ramen.

Two days after storms ripped through my area, part of a derecho, a line of fast moving thunder storms with hurricane-strength winds, I drove through my neighborhood.

OMG…I saw incredible devastation. Building materials for home projects were blown far from the yards where they were being stored. Beautiful and majestic trees were downed, blocking huge swaths of residential streets. Some landed on cars.

It never occurred to me to feel grateful because I was not the poor schmuck who owned the green SUV with the badly dented roof and splinters caught in his windshield wipers.

But, in the aftermath of the storms (the highest winds and worst damage seemingly occurring in under ten minutes), I have been contemplating gratitude a lot.

I got my wooden folding tables off my back deck and rearranged my outdoor chairs to rest immediately against the wall before the winds really kicked in. I never lost power.

From my dining room and adjoining office, I could see the sky darken quickly.  My dog, much better than AccuWeather at predicting storms, wanted me to follow her into my bedroom, which is  the most insulated room in my condo, but, when I chose to stay and watch the light show, ended up stretched out under the dining room table.

I watched the wind whip around sturdy trees in back yards across my alley. Raindrops, moving sideways, announced themselves loudly like bullets being sprayed out of a machine gun.

When it was over, I felt fortunate that I didn’t lose electricity, and my life was not greatly disrupted….but then the calls started coming in.

My sister, who lives about twenty miles away, lost power and, unsure when the power would return, asked if I had any room for temporary storage of her food.

Quite the chef and entertainer, she has two refrigerators and two freezers. She explained that she already identified some refrigerator space available with people closer to her home who were not affected by the outage.

“I don’t have much freezer space,” I explained, “but you could take two shelves and one produce drawer.”

I cleaned the fridge in anticipation for the food drop-off later that night. I laughed at how “bachelor-esque” the contents of my fridge are. Beer, eggs, ketchup and other condiments are well-represented.

After my sister and brother-n-law loaded up my GE, showered, and headed off to their dark home in the ‘burbs, a friend of mine who only lives about a mile away, called me from Michigan where she has been spending a lot of time helping her elderly mother.

“Do you have any room in your freezer?” she asked. I got called by a neighbor. We lost electricity in the storm yesterday, and I’m going to drive into Chicago tomorrow morning and see what’s in my freezer.”

“I don’t have much room in my freezer, but I’ll rearrange things and see if I can make room. My sister just left. She lost power and she pretty much used all available fridge space. I’ll send you a pic tonight showing how much room I have. Text me tomorrow with an ETA.”

Terri’s electricity, it turned out, came on early in the morning, but, when she got to town, she had sorting and cleaning to do.

In her four brief hours here, she focused on giving away items from her freezer that had already de-frosted. Before she left town, she delivered semi-frozen blueberries and pound of sea scallops which, she advised, needed to be cooked right away.

I realized I was smiling from ear to ear (probably not visible under my mask). I was thinking about how GRATEFUL I was.

It was not because I felt luckier than my friend or sister because I didn’t lose power. My buoyant mood was not because I got to eat sea scallops with green onions from the farmer’s market (although dinner was yummy) …but I was so happy that I was able to offer room in my fridge.

Being able to offer something, even if that’s just fridge space, is no small thing.