Loss - I don't think any of us enjoys loss, so it seems an odd place for gratitude. However, without loss, I don't know if we'd truly appreciate all of the good in our lives. Loss gives us perspective. Loss makes us more empathetic and sympathetic. Loss makes victory feel that much sweeter. Loss is a teacher to help us learn to be better.
Louisiana - I have different areas of my life where I can feel stir crazy or claustrophobic. One of those areas is a feeling like I'm geographically/locationally stuck. This is a really high level description of the feeling and what can trigger a response, but for whatever reason, it gives me peace of mind knowing I can make it out of TX to the LA border in less than 2 hours.
Leavening - Our stores are full of Easter goodies right now. Easter always makes me think of Passover, since there are many years where Passover overlaps with Easter weekend and one of the most iconic pieces of TV programming around this time (The Ten Commandments) is a Hollywood take on the Passover Haggadah. This is not one of those years. In fact, Easter is pretty early and Passover is late (4/22-4/30). Nonetheless, Easter goodies always remind me of all of the years growing up where there was overlap and we couldn't eat much at my paternal Grandparents' Easter dinner. School lunchtime was also pretty miserable. You don't really appreciate leavening agents until you're stuck with matzo-based products for over a week.