Happiness is fleeting. It never lasts, and I’m not sure it’s supposed to. It’s different than joy and contentment and pleasantness. Happiness bubbles up from an unexpected place and lasts such a short time, and when it arrives, it sometimes brings tears. Living in constant happiness would render us nearly helpless. It immobilizes you. Living in joy and contentment is great with, hopefully, unexpected surges of happiness from time to time that render us speechless.
For my fifty-sixth birthday earlier this week, the good Lord sent me several surges of happiness. I’m old enough now, and wise enough, to know what they are when I feel them and to do my best to live in them for the moments they’re with me. To document them in my head, to let them imprint on my brain and to know that they’ll end and to cherish their memories.
The first one came when a small team of which I was a member successfully executed the opening of an event. It was better, I think, than what we had expected. I looked over a large crowd who acknowledged our efforts with a celebratory cheer that lasted and lasted as some of the people we had worked to recognize where indeed recognized the way my team and I had hoped. I looked at my teammate and our grins were, well, enormous. Our celebratory hug was spontaneous, genuine, and heartfelt.
Then I watched as one of my children entertained her friends from Oxford who had never seen a Mardi Gras parade or a Mardi Gras ball. They were overwhelmed. My daughter took such great pride in introducing her friends to her traditions and her roots, and her friends soaked it all in. They ate it all up. They showed immense gratitude to my daughter in all the experiences they had and all the memories they received. I was happy when I saw my daughter beaming with pride. Her friends had seen and truly appreciated what she was so proud of.
And then there’s the moment that brought the tears. It was a friend of my late mother’s who looked at my daughter and immediately saw her, saw my mother. She said it was in her face and her joyfulness. I confess I had never seen it. My daughter’s only ever looked like my daughter, but when I looked through my mother’s friend’s eyes, I saw it. As I stood with my mother’s friend, she began tearing up at the memory of my mother which had suddenly surged back. When I saw the tears and looked at my daughter through her eyes, I felt a surge of sadness, of ache, and, there in it all, was happiness. Happiness that my mother was so loved. My mother died three years ago on Wednesday, and for my birthday I was reminded that my mother was gone only if I let her be. I was reminded that I can keep her with me. Her memory is one I have access to, one I can control, one I can choose, and rather than feel sadness at her untimely loss, I can choose happiness that I remember her. And I did. And I felt it.
I’m Cam Marston, just trying to keep it real.
